Starfleet, Society, and Structural Critiques in Star Trek

Join us in this comprehensive YouTube video as we delve deeply into the Star Trek universe to reveal the dystopian underbelly of the United Federation of Planets. Exploring key examples from the series, we present evidence suggesting that the Federation is not the utopian society it claims to be but rather a militaristic, nepotistic, and dictatorial regime. Contrasting it with the supposedly fascist but more ethical world of Starship Troopers, we uncover how the Star Trek universe may echo the darker aspirations of a progressive utopia. From power dynamics and replicator scarcity to AI extermination and systemic sexism, this analysis will change how you view Star Trek forever.

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be doing an analysis of the Star Trek universe and we will be exploring, because this is something I long thought when I watched Star Trek stuff historically, and I've watched a lot of it. I had this feeling in the background, which is like.

This seems very dystopian and dark to me. Mm-hmm, but because I could never watch it all or search it all without ai, I thought maybe there's some counter examples against this. Yeah. I decided to dig very deep today.

And I am going to be bringing receipts that the federation in the Star Trek universe is a militarist fascist. Mostly dictatorship with a, a, they have an elected government, but it has virtually no real power. It, it's used, they have about the, the elected government in the Star Trek world has about as much power as the queen has in Britain.

Wow. Worse. It is a world where they, while they call it post scarcity, there actually is not a single instance in all of Star Trek cannon of a character that is not associated with the the Federation military saying that the Federation is a post scarcity society. Oh. So if you're in the military, it feels post scarcity?

Well, not, not, it feels you. Even it's a military dictatorship. It's like in North Korea where you ask somebody in the military has North Korea prosperous society and somebody in the military is gonna be like, north Korea's the most prosperous society. Everyone has three meals a day and they're happy as a clam.

Oh, dear. But, and, and we will go over that this military is not a meritocracy. It's incredibly nepotistic. We will go over instances that show that the military within the Star Trek universe is more nepotistic. Then literally any military on Earth today, except for some like African dictatorships.

Like the degree, just, just to give you an example of what I mean here we have an instance of a mother assigning a daughter to directly under her command on her ship. We are going. Be a decent number of Nepo babies in Star Trek. I thought it was just a button. Yeah. You have a Wesley K Crusher who is allowed on the command deck despite having no formal training.

But we love him, but we love him. He then rushed through Starlet Academy when we know a Frengi wasn't even allowed to apply. Oh. That without a separate So, so it, it's a, it's a systematically racist system as well.

In the latest season of Lower Deck, there was a really chilling episode, , in which a species had just been given replicators by the Federation and they were celebrating what they called post scarcity day, where they were. And I kid you not. Having all of their gold and jewels taken by the federation because they wouldn't quote unquote, need them anymore.

And the federation used all of that stuff to all their currency as well, despite the fact that the federation does use currency. , And so then the federation takes all this planet's gold and jewels and gives them to another species to a problem that they are having with them.

And you can say, well, the federation's original plan was to melt it down or destroy it. And I'm like, if that was the case, then why? Why was the planet forced to give all of this to the federation? Why not put it in a museum or something? Why did the federation take all of the planet's valuables? There is no explainable reason unless they were trying to prevent the planet from being able to trade with other species.

Now that the planet was dependent on them for the means of production.

And. What is really like ghoulish about this is we see this planet celebrating, like they're gonna have free access to the replicators that were given to them.

And yet we know the federation maintains strict control of the replicators. So clearly the federation has misled them

what this scene has strong vibes of is the ashen from SG one, which is this species that comes in, offers earth and other planets the opportunity to have longer lives, to stay young, longer to not get sick. But what they really do at the same time is sterilize them. So that they can replace them and use their planets any way they see fit, which is what the Federation is doing here, by giving them replicators and getting rid of every other way that they can produce things.

But by maintaining control of what can be produced and how much of it can be produced on the replicators, they have completely seized the means of production was in this planet.

And I would remind you, it is not the Federation civilian government that sees the means of production on the planet. It is their military star fleet because it is Star Fleet that controls who can use replicators for what and when. Apparently they just didn't tell anyone on this planet that.

SG1 Achen: do not underestimate what we offer we can put an end to disease, double the human lifespan. Provide the means to cross entire continents in a single step.

We offer Earth membership within the Aschen Confederation.

Now if I'm right, these are newspapers.

SG1: By the way, Bo,

would you read this aloud for me? I couldn't quite translate it. Of course, sterility.

We knew what you were planning while, and this just confirms it. Vaccine causes sterility. That was the headline. You wiped out most of the vum population and turned their entire world into farmland and do the same to earth.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. And we'll be contrasting it to the Regi who are not racist in this way. And they'll be like, well, the Regi are sexist.

And I'll be like, actually, we'll be challenging that as well. If you actually dig in to what is Canon within the world. The Federation is incredibly sexist. You have multiple instances of commanders forcing themselves on subordinates and facing no repercussions, forcing women within their crew to dress in scamy outfits.

And women disproportionately only really serving traditionally feminine roles, except in a few instances where they're commanders and they mostly f stuff up. Oh, and then as a cherry on the cake to all of this, and keep in mind all of this is happening with a genetic underclass. Mm-hmm. The federation has a genetic underclass where some people are born essentially illegal citizens.

Wait how, who. Anyone who has had any genetic alteration done to themselves or their ancestors

Sorry. This may not be obvious to people, but if you give somebody genetic modifications within one, , generation, those modifications will be inherited by their descendants. So it doesn't just make an underclass of the individual, but anyone who is born to that family.

Which means that the only real solution to these individuals from the federation's perspective is to forcibly sterilize them.

I'd also note here, and I think it's very telling that in very progressive coded shows like Star Trek genetic enhancement and trying to make humans better is seen very negatively. The obsession with genetic purity is really exclusive to progressive movements, , Whereas in conservative coded futures like say War Hammer 40 K, , it's seen very positively, which I think shows where these two sites actually sit on this.

Progressives worship, humanity's weakness and stagnation, whereas most conservative groups want humanity to continue to improve.

And the federation has been shown to actively treat these people as second class citizens and constantly be hunting for them. So they have strict controls of how you can have kids who can have kids.

You can't

Simone Collins: genetically modify yourself in this dark trick federation.

Malcolm Collins: Extremely. And they, and they hunt down people who are what, even if it's not their choice and their parents did it, no, it's dystopian. But, but the worst part about all of this is we're also gonna get into how this structure is controlled, specifically the military regulates replicators.

And people can say, well, they need to replicate replicators because of the power use of replicators. But we will be showing actually the power use of replicators is largely minimum. So it appears that they are regulating access to replicators purely as a means of creating artificial scarcity to maintain economic control over the masses.

I should note this isn't just speculation, it's basically confirmed in universe. You can see this within cork's bar where he has replicators, but he still has to regularly import ingredients. The reason why he would need to import ingredients, which would almost certainly cost more energy to import ingredients to a deep space station, then using a local replicator, , which is just a simplified transporter, transporting something in its memory buff.

. The only reason you would have that if, if access to the replicators was restricted to create artificial scarcity. There is no way the energy economy needs of transporting food to a Deep Space Station are less than just using a replicator.

And I note here if you are a fan and are going to say, well, some people say that replicated food doesn't taste as good as real food in universe. Yes. Some people say that in the same way. Some people in our universe. Say that they don't like, , AI art as much as non-AI art, but when they don't know there's AI art, they like it more.

Given that we know how replicators work, that they are just simplified transporters. , No one in universe if they really, genuinely believe that the food that came out of a replicator. Tasted nothing like real food would ever, ever use a transporter, and yet we see the very people who make these claims using transporters regularly because it would mean that whatever was coming out of the transporter wasn't the same as the thing that went into it.

And, and keep in mind it's not even like they treat the people well. We know from lower decks that while replicators can for a trivial difference in terms of energy costs replicate real food lower status military members are forced to eat nutrition cubes and they do not gain access to real food until they work their way up within the military hierarchy.

Simone Collins: That makes sense because even people at higher ranks talk about using their replicator credits for the week.

Yeah. So not a

Malcolm Collins: post scarcity society and a military dictatorship and very evil, especially when contrasted with like the Regi and will also contrast 'em with the government in Starship Troopers, which is just endlessly more ethical, more gender egalitarian, more everything.

Yeah. So let's get started here. When I talk about the military as basically a, a interplanetary dictatorship, it's important to understand what the military controls in the Star Trek universe because when you begin to think about it, you're like, it is weird how rare it is to see anybody who's not in the military was in Star Trek.

And that is because within the federation space, the military controls all exploration. So basically they control what everyone knows exists and doesn't exist, right? They control pretty much all negotiations. So, so in a, in a country like ours, that would be controlled by the poli political class, you wouldn't send military commanders to handle the negotiation during a war.

Not true. In the Star Trek universe, they handle all interspecies negotiation, treaties, everything like that. That's

Simone Collins: a good point. Yeah, they,

Malcolm Collins: they handle all scientific research. It has shown that there are non-military scientific researchers, but they basically contribute nothing. We are aware of almost no major discoveries by them.

And when they do have major discoveries, they are often confiscated. Take data, for example who is now basically owned by the military and they even thought about dissecting him to mass replicate him. They are in charge of first contact, a very weird thing to put the military in charge of.

But yes, they are in charge of colonization which they do very aggressively. It's a very expansionist empire. And they are in charge law enforcement. And on top of all that, we will later explore that they are also above civilian law and, and and legal system. Whenever it is shown that the military, even within a civilian context.

Like Kirk we'll go into it, but it was on a dock, so it was not in a military context. Ends up doing something that is illegal and he's tried by a military and not a civilian court. Wow. That when you're looking for dictatorships is a very big sign that you're looking at a dictatorship.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So going into that they also control the most prestigious academic institution in Federation, space Star, star Phil eight Academy.

And it is an institution that has been shown to be extremely nepotistic for the children of people within the military. While go into instances of this and also incredibly discriminatory to anyone without military connections we will go into this as well. So it, it, it gives you sort of your status within society.

But you know, you don't get this if, if you're not doing the right. You're, you're not saying the right chits and you're not born into the right family. In terms of economic control of the military, keep in mind that they control all trade within federation space, all planet to planet trade. That is an amazing amount for a military to control as well as replicators, which is also really important because that is key to the way that trade works within this, yeah universe.

They also control most labs, star bases, medical innovations, planetary logistics, et cetera. And civilian operations rarely operate independently on star strip unless they are traders, criminals, or fringe settlers. The civil government is incredibly weak. The federation president is rarely mentioned and has almost no real authority in most episodes.

Civilian institutions like the Federation Council are rarely shown making important decisions. Key constitutional decisions are done by military tribunals. We see this in the drumhead and measure of a man. Then you have section 31 and people will be like, well, section 31 is framed as bad guys. If you're not familiar with them, they are a shadowy, extra judicial starlee intelligence group.

They have no democratic oversight and they operate with impunity in, in federation space. And they try to advance the federation interest. They have tried to commit genocide before. They haven't done murders without trial before, et cetera. And you can be like, well, they're not officially condoned.

And I'm like, actually, the official stance of the star fleet is section 31 doesn't exist now, given the copious evidence, they do exist. To say they don't exist means we are covering for them and condone their continued existence. So they have a, a basically off the books group that can go around murder people and advance their interests even to the point of committing genocide.

Simone Collins: Wait,

Malcolm Collins: continuing. Wait, what? What show? Wait, what show features this? Why? They're, they're in a few different shows. I, I, I, I don't remember all of them, but yeah. Oh my gosh. I

Simone Collins: know. There's so much. That's the problem is there's just a lot of material here. I can see why. Yeah. It's, it's, there's so much plausible deniability that like, oh, no, no, no.

That, that must be ethical because, you know, it must be a utopia. I'm just missing something. Yeah. I actually was under the impression that there wasn't a separate government from the federation. I thought the federation was just the entire government. But you're saying there's actually, there is a

Malcolm Collins: separate like puppet government basically that has no real power.

Okay. Which, which by the way, like strongly contrast with something like Starship Troopers. Yeah. Where the military and the government are one. And you vote for who runs the military Exactly. By Marshal. Yes. Which makes a lot more sense. Yeah. And it breaks a lot of the nepotism things. There's, there's not as much nepotism shown.

There's not much, but, we'll, we'll get into all that later. Now you can be like, oh, well, civilian autonomy still exists. You have individuals like Joseph, Cisco. The, the problem with Joseph Cisco is he is related to a high level military commander. And we know that he operates a restaurant that uses real food, which suggests he doesn't have access to replicator technology.

Oh. Or real food is a status symbol, but likely replicator technology. We'll get to why in a second. And we know that his access to military command is when he needed a, a heart operation. I believe it was. He used the military.

Yeah. He received heart treatment for heart problems from star fleet doctors. Hmm. Which implies that even as somebody who owned a restaurant and was of middle class, he would not have been able to afford this procedure without military connections. Which again implies you do not have a lot of autonomy outside of this.

And we repeatedly see when individuals outside the military are shown, and the way I've always interpreted the Star Trek shows is that is military propaganda within universe. Because like when you see people outside of the military, you see like Picard's brother or something. Right. But I mean, let's even take the case of Picard to get an understanding of what we mean by an intergenerational aristocratic class.

So Earths is a post scarcity world. Right. But Picard owns a very large vineyard and not just a very large vineyard, but it's a very large vineyard that is a. Family vineyard. So you don't just have wealth, you have intergenerational wealth.

Simone Collins: Right. This is, I guess, proof that this is not a communist society, right?

I mean, is there land ownership if you've Yes. Well, I mean, we know

Malcolm Collins: there's land ownership because Picard owns a vineyard unless it was allotted to him by the military, which we know it wasn't because it was inherited by his family. It's said to be a family vineyard. We know that there is an aristocratic, wealthy land owning cast that owns large tracks of land and also ends up with high level positions within the military at disproportionate rights.

Right. Like there, there's no other reason that he should have this military position. And this is something we'll see over and over again as we go into the data. Mm-hmm. By the way, if you're wondering what a system like this is called Sheldon Wallen would've called it inverted totalitarianism or a statewide, where you have statewide democratic trappings exist, but the real power structure is opaque, unelected, and centralized here.

Star Trek. Oh,

Simone Collins: so, 'cause I was thinking this must just be a military dictatorship, but it's basically that, but everyone pretends it's not right. That's in other words. Well, they're

Malcolm Collins: forced to pretend it's not how much this disseminates outside the military is unknown, but we'll also go into instances in which people criticize the military and are harshly punished.

Okay. So it

Simone Collins: could be that people don't even realize it.

Malcolm Collins: No, my read, as I've said, if it was that people didn't realize it in universe, we would have civilians saying, I live in a post-care city world and I love it.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. We

Malcolm Collins: don't have any civilians saying that in the entire star. This is a giant cannon in the entire Star Trek cannon.

So do we encounter many civilians? Yes, you do sometimes encounter civilians, earth civilians. But you, you wouldn't expect to, like I mentioned with Cisco and stuff like that, you wouldn't expect to be seeing many civilians if it was military propaganda. Yeah. And if the military, from the perspective of the military, only their lives existed mm-hmm.

Only their lives mattered. And I really like it as like telling on progressives. Remember, I, I go into Starship Troopers is telling on progressives where they think this is an attack on conservatives, but it actually shows a utopia. Mm-hmm. And, you know, gender egalitarian, no racism, everyone gets along, actual responsibility, not a lot of nepotism.

Whereas if you look at their quote unquote utopia, which is. Star Trek, which is what it's supposed to be, the progressive utopia often. Right. Totally framed that way. You see what they really want, which is a world where they have total military control and no one else's life matters. That's really what it's yeah.

They call the

Simone Collins: shots on everything. Yeah. And,

Malcolm Collins: and no one else is allowed to say anything, whether you're a great scientist or anything like that. It is just the military. They have control of who breeds how they breed, et cetera. Let's go into that right now. The eugenics war in the aftermath.

Simone Collins: Yeah. This I didn't pick up on at all.

That's crazy.

Malcolm Collins: So, augments like Khan Noonan's Singh led to a devastating war on Earth in the 20th to the 21st century. The federation response was a total ban on genetic engineering of humans outside of medical necessity. Now, I point out here that I don't actually like. To me, it is unclear whether this war was justified because we have mostly the federation's recounts of this war to go on.

Simone Collins: Sure.

Malcolm Collins: But for whatever reason, the first gene altered humans were basically crazy. In mega Lamont maniacal. There is no reason a gene altered human would be that way if you understand gene altering, because the things you would be altering, like IQ typically correlate really strongly with prosociality.

Mm-hmm. Like, lower IQ is associated with higher degrees of rape. It's dis it's associated with higher degrees. Yeah. So

Simone Collins: what we would expect is lower crime, lower violence, higher achievement, more helping people.

Malcolm Collins: So we know this is the way science actually works. So we're looking at a world where the first gene alter humans were basically crazy megalomaniacal individuals who almost took over earth.

I read false flag operation because there's no reason that should have been the case.

Simone Collins: That's fair.

Malcolm Collins: If, if you understand science, it's almost as if they were trying to paint anyone who is Gene altered as subhuman. So, wait, Khan is one of these people?

Simone Collins: Yes. Oh, I guess I never contextualized it that way.

Oh, and so the federation, so Word team Kahan.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, well, not really, because I think Kahn was a false flag operation of somebody who was basically Gene altered to be crazy. Mm-hmm. And then when you look at how crazy he's, he never could have gained the power that he gained. Mm-hmm. So, and then put in a position of power so that the federation could crack down on this technology.

Okay.

The federation response was a total ban on genetic engineering of humans out. And. What you see the result of this in, in deep space nine. Dr. Julian Bashir had to hide his childhood gene modifications to avoid expulsion from Starfleet Keep. He would've been treated as an underclass, not even allowed in Star Fleet.

What

Simone Collins: do you know? Do we know as, as viewers what the modifications were for? Yes.

Malcolm Collins: And First Green. Julia Bahar showed great difficulty learning and below average height and weight for his age.

So I note here , the fact that he was dealt a bad hand of the dice by genetics and was slow and small for his age is, is a systemic form of unfairness, was in the Star Trek universe that the Federation works to maintain, to maintain their existing power structure.

They are maintaining systemic genetic inequality when they have the technology to address it.

shortly before his seventh birthday, his parents, Richard and Amachi Bahar had him subjugated to genetic engineering.

The procedure made him mentally superior to most humans and greatly enhanced his physical abilities. And we can also see from him that he is not evil. Mm-hmm. He is not. There's no reason that this is bad tech. You, you see? Okay. Maybe it made con evil back in the day. This guy's just like a generic, decent guy.

Right. So why is the technology still banned if it was able to help somebody like this?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: However, because if human genetic engineering had been declared illegal in the United Federations of Planets, except in cases concerning deaths and burst defects, so I'll note here, which is really interesting, is this shows the technology when not implemented under this false flag ideology, even in universe, doesn't make people crazy.

Mm-hmm. But Shear and his parents, yeah, they do it.

Simone Collins: They just. Really, really, really heavily regulated. In other words,

Malcolm Collins: well, what, what I'm saying is they do it when they're saying if somebody's going to die, otherwise they will do it. Mm-hmm. But they do not allow it generically. Mm-hmm. But Bashar and his parents had to keep this procedure secret throughout most of his adult life.

At the age of 15, he learned of what had been done and began using his first name, Julian Reasoning that the modifications had erased his original self from existence. What a crazy thing to believe.

Sorry. I say this is a crazy thing to believe, , because if you're not familiar with genetics, the way your genes express themselves change as you age and throughout your life, , it appears that the genetic modifications he had done were fairly modest. , It to the extent that other people couldn't tell that they had been done to him if they knew him before.

, So to that he had this level of. Internalized racism against genetically modified individuals, , that he saw himself as. Basically not the same human, , shows the degree to which people who live under the federation's tyranny are brainwashed into the dehumanization of people with genetic modifications.

To save beshear from losing starlee commission and medical license, Richard agrees to plead guilty to illegal genetic engineering and serve two years in prison.

So his parents underwent two years in prison for this. And he was essentially being hunted. And he would've been kicked out of school if they had found out something that he had no choice in. This is a, a, a world with a genetic underclass, which is shocking to me, and a genetic underclass with no logic behind it.

Simone Collins: That is crazy. Wow. Okay, let's, did they, I mean, sometimes they highlight these things to show that they're bad, right? I mean, was this presented in a critical light or was it presented in a light of, and this is why genetic engineering is evil.

Malcolm Collins: No, the in Star Trek genetic engineering is always only framed as evil because people who are genetically engineered go crazy even though we know this isn't the case.

Well, but he was,

Simone Collins: I mean, clearly this doctor was framed in a sympathetic light given everything he to go through. Right? The

Malcolm Collins: point is, is that is the reason for the laws, that is the universe is in universe justification. That is Gene Roddenberry's explanation. He invented the character of Khan. This is not like a later edition or something like that.

This is like OG material to the series. This isn't later they effed up the federation and made them super racist. This is core to who the federation is in the earliest renditions of this and, and the justification is all gene modified humans are evil, even though we know that's not the case in universe.

Wow.

Basically the reason why gene modified humans aren't allowed in is because Star fleet is racist against gene modified humans. Like they believe that they are an intrinsically negative and bad thing, and you could say, well, maybe gene modified humans have some advantage, and this could create some unfairness.

But the problem , is data is allowed in and he has unparalleled memory strength and more betazoids are allowed in and they can read minds. Troy is an empath giving her an advantage over other counselors. So it's not an issue that some people are born with abilities that other people don't have. , The issue is just racism.

Alright, to continue Star Fleet as gatekeeper to ambition and purpose, civilian scientists are marginalized. Almost all major scientific breakthroughs are shown as happening through Star Fleet jurisdictions, civilians, or non star fleet experts are often portrayed as either rogue or restless scientists in Galaxy's child or the Pegasus or hopelessly out classify star fleet solutions.

Then you have the relic Hunter arc from lower decks which is an independent archeologist. Petra Arbe arc reveals that federation civilians who pursued independent careers and exploration and artifact discovery operate under heavy scrutiny. So they're basically under constant military surveillance.

And they're portrayed as and thought of within the military as suspicious and possibly criminal. Specifically, you cannot easily rise in status outside of the military in this world. It, it does not even appear that you can earn wealth outside of the military in this world, which heavily contrasts with star strip troopers.

We know that Ricoh's parents are non-citizens. IE they never served in the military and they are extremely wealthy.

Just to be clear, so I'm not misunderstood here. I'm not saying there are not many counter examples to this. I am saying there is literally none in all of Star Trek canon. There isn't a single example that shows that you, while living under Federation authority, can earn wealth and power outside of the military.

, If you want to see people who almost show this, you can look at like Joseph Cisco, but his son is a respected captain in the military, which could. Under a military dictatorship, get him lots of, , abilities to skirt the rules. You have vash but vash is a criminal and made wealth as a criminal. You have loi Troy, , but she's diplomatic aristocracy.

She's beta oid royalty, not terran. ,

even when you see, , scientists and engineers, non-military civilians like Leah Brams or Richard Day Storm are influential, but only through their service to star, freely related science.

So this is unique to this world is that there is likely, because it doesn't make sense how many Star fleet commanders are also wealthy. Look at Picard. Yeah. Unless they have some control of the economic system and they're using it to their advantage.

Mm-hmm. Or there's some sort of aristocratic class that keeps getting these roles.

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: Let's go to nepotism Now. I already talked about Mariner and Freeman in lower decks where commander Freeman's own daughter in Instant Mariner was assigned to her ship, which you couldn't do in almost any military on Earth today.

Even most like Banana Republic militaries wouldn't allow you to do that. This is pretty much exclusively something you would only see in a military dictatorship. And then you have Wesley K Crusher in TNG. He was the son of Dr. Beverly Crusher. He was allowed on the bridge of a federation ship without training.

To be clear here, Picard is sleeping with Dr. Beverly Crusher. This kid's mom, who also is his subordinate by the way, just throwing that out there. , so in the Star Trek world, how do you ensure a good life for your kid? Well, you gotta sleep with your captain.

And he was later fast tracked at the Starlet Academy where he is treated like a progeny because of picard's patronage and mother's position. However we see Nog a redi is not allowed unless he is vouched for by a federation member, despite how he does on tests or anything like that. Whereas elite families get fast tracked due to this hereditary privilege we see.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn you down. Turn me down. Why did I do something wrong? It's not anything you did n you're just not Academy material. You couldn't handle the workload or the discipline. That's not true. I'm a hard worker. I proved that to you. It doesn't matter. I don't have time for this Nog. Now, whatever little scheme you had, you can forget it. I'm not giving you that letter. It's not a joke or a scheme. I want to join Star Fleet. I want it more than anything I've ever wanted in my life. You are a faren.

Malcolm Collins: You also see the military acting quite evilly. So, let's talk about the Kardashian piece. So in the F Federation, Kardashian Treaty signed and TNG journeys end and expanded in DS nine. They created a demilitarized zone to secure peace. The federation seeded inhabited federation colonies to the Kardashian control colonists.

Humans and federation citizens were told to either relocate or live under Kardashian rule. Many refused to leave their home and became stateless people with no protection from their government. These were called the. McKees. The Kardashians routinely harassed and abuse these colonists, resource denial arrests, and even killings.

The federation did nothing to help the colonists adapt or leave.

And I wanna be clear here, , it is not shown anywhere in Canon that the federation made an effort to attempt to resettle these colonists, , or move them to other planets. I mean, so much for post scarcity federation world in a post scarcity world. That should have been a trivial thing to do. And yet they just left these colonists to, , you know, the killing raids, et cetera.

In response, the civilians formed the marquees a military to defend themselves. And then what did the federation do? They called this group not in federation territory, mind you, terrorists, and they attempted to hunt and imprison or kill them.

So they

Simone Collins: abandoned and then

Malcolm Collins: punished the people for attempting to protect themselves from the new government

Simone Collins: after, but after abandoning them, without helping them out.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly.

Simone Collins: Ooh, surely this was framed in a light of The federation is in the wrong here. No,

Malcolm Collins: no, no. It's even worse than that. We can go into one of the, the people who this happened to, but one of them is later a recurring character on a show.

And he was in this particular revolution. Oh. And like one

Simone Collins: of these citizens who'd been left behind, and

Malcolm Collins: he is constantly harassed for this. He is denied promotion for this. He is treated, is treated as very much like you are an underclass because you went against the federation. Even if you went against the federation in a potentially just way in self defense.

Yeah, we hunt and we kill you. No disagreement. Even if you're not in federation territory, even if you're just trying to defend yourself.

Quote from Show: The only reason I've contacted you is to ask you to leave us alone. Our quarrel is with the Kardashians, not the federation. Open your eyes, captain. Why is the federation so obsessed with the McKee? We've never harmed you, and yet we're constantly arrested and charged with terrorism. Starships chase us through the Badlands and our supporters are harassed and ridiculed.

Why? Because we've left the federation. And that's the one thing you can't accept.

Malcolm Collins: And keep in mind that this is in spite of the fact that the federation has section 31 that they deny exists,

Sorry, I should clarify through denying that a group that very, very, very obviously exists, does not exist. They show that they are covering for this group and their complicity in the group's actions.

so they allow potential genocide and extrajudicial kidds if it.

Helps them. But when there's a group that is diplomatically inconvenient for them they attempt to eradicate them in genocide. So again, like I'm not like pulling at straws here. This is like core Star Trek lore, right? So, I'm never gonna be able to

Simone Collins: watch Star Trek the same way again.

Malcolm Collins: Wondering what, what section 38 has attempted to do.

They attempted to genocide the founders, the Dominion leaders, using a tailor-made virus. They attempted to manipulate clinging on politics to preserve federation hegemony. And they conducted convert surveillance of Starlee personnel without any form of oversight. Now civilians are in, in the federation as we see repeatedly generally second class participants in society.

If we look at the roles that they serve, they often either serve star fleet directly, so they're not really civilians. This is like, Kiko O'Brien, who's a school teacher. They're family members of Star Fleet personnel like Jake, Cisco and, and Cassidy Eight. Or they run bars or shops. This is Cork and Garrick, and they are constantly under federation surveillance.

They're constantly being shown as a federation coming through doing very aggressive checks, everything like that. Wow. So they, they, it's not like you have like ENT entrepreneurial autonomy within the federation. If you look at, for example, cork he runs the most successful business on the DS nine colony.

And he's constantly lectured, regulated, or threatened by star Fleet for one running hollow suites, which they basically imply a sex tourism. That's one. Trading in gray and black markets, which, which is messed up 'cause they have hollow suites on federation vessels and we know that from episodes that they use them for romance type stuff too.

Totally. Like there are episodes about that. And I think it's also confirmed in lower decks where they're like,

Then give her worse jobs. I've got her emptying outta the holodeck filter. Ugh. People really use it for that. Oh yeah. It's mostly that.

Oh.

Computer load. Mariner program. All new Olympic training facility. You might wanna back up a bit. Wow. This is a really detailed program.

Malcolm Collins: And despite being a essential gestation morale, cork is seen as morally suspect.

Not because he is evil, but because he is not aligned with his star fleet's perception. In an attempt to impose a perception that they are a post economic society basically, even though people are buying from Cork because apparently they don't have another way to get this stuff. Like if they could just get what he's selling from Replicators, given that we know that he makes some of it from Replicators, they would be doing that.

So why is replicator access so restricted?

Simone Collins: That's a fair point. More on

Malcolm Collins: that soon. Well,

Simone Collins: because I, I saw one other YouTuber posit that there must be some universal UBI kind of based on energy use that can be applied to replicators.

Malcolm Collins: But, but we can see that. Okay. So I'll, I'll just get into this right now.

Okay. So we know how replicators work. Mm-hmm. They are considered a simpler form of teleportation. They, they use apparently the same technology. We can from various episodes begin to sort of calculate the energy needs of teleportation and replicators. We see rep teleportation is used. Without regulation almost constantly.

Right. But presumably it's far more expensive to use than replicators. But more than that, we see warp travel being used very regularly. And we know that warp travel is astronomically more expensive than replicators. Sure. So replicators, which are essentially a trivial expense, are highly regulated in their usage and regulated in ways that shouldn't really matter.

Like a nutrition cube shouldn't cost a lot less to replicate than a equally nutritionally dense chicken or something, given that replicators are basically just teleporters. So the question is, is why are they, why are some people given artificially bad food within Starfleet?

Simone Collins: Ooh, that's creepy. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: This is fascinating. But yeah, so I'm freaking out here to Earth is infiltrated by shape. Shifting Dominion. Founders, capable of impersonating anyone and a change link bomb destroys a federation facility causing mass panic. I.

Admiral Layton, a high ranking star, fleet officer, believes the civilian government is too weak to respond. So what does he do? He stages in a military coup. He falsifies evidence of mass changing infiltration. He deploys Star Fleet Security across Earth as martial law and he attempts to take over star fleet command and remove the president of the Federation.

He's only stopped by Captain Cisco who uncovered the conspiracy. But what this reveals very interestingly is the federation government is incredibly fragile. They basically have no power to resist this. And the only group that does have power to resist this is an individual within, in Starlee itself to maintain the rad of a civilian government.

Mm-hmm. That star fleet's upper command, and many of them were willing to overthrow democracy in the name of quote unquote security with apparently little pushback. That ordinary citizens are thought of and treated like sheep by the higher people within Star Fleet that a single military officer's belief that democracy is insufficient, was enough to cause the system to, topple. And the, these are all things that with are within the DNA of Star fleet. To go further, you have TNG, the Drumhead. This is season four, episode 21. A Cling on Exchange Officer is suspected of sabotage aboard Enterprise Admiral Norris Sarcy is a retired but a legendary Star Fleet investigator.

So she is a Star Fleet investigator that has been investigating for Star Fleet so long that she has retired. So, let's see what tactics she, a well liked and known Star Fleet investigator ends up using. She quickly escalates the inquiry into a broad inquisition of traitors and synthesizers. She uses hearsay ancestry and ideology as evidence.

She targets crew members simply for having a rolin grandfather. She questions Captain Picard's loyalty due to past Borg assimilation and his defensive individual rights. Her witch hunts only stop when Picard turns her tactics against her. But what's important here is she is arresting people because of their ancestry.

Okay? Mm-hmm. This is. Considered normal by somebody who was well liked by the Federation enough that she retired as a famous investigator. Wow. And these are the tactics that she used. No one had ever put in a complaint on her record. No one had ever said, oh, you shouldn't be doing this. Which shows that Picard is unique in pushing back against this type of stuff, and this sort of dictatorship style system is normal.

And this sort of McCarthy court tribunals aren't normal within the Federation.

And I actually think this is one of the most damning episodes of the entire, , federation in that you can't be like, oh, it's one of the shows that sometimes tried to show the federation a bad light, like DS nine or, . , Lower decks, , this is like core TNG, right? Like this is Picard, right? And what we see in no uncertain terms is that Picard's ship for all its problems for him hooking up with his subordinates and the extreme nepotism he shows and being this rich guy who has , a vineyard and all the privileges he gives himself through his military status.

The. He is the best of the best within Starfleet of this era, and that if this happened on any other ship, this would've been rewarded because we know that she rose in status because she had been doing this over and over and over again. And so what we learn is that this woman's tactics are the norm.

Throughout all of Star Fleet with Picard ship, the ship that we are seeing, being the very best behaved ship, likely speaking, despite all of its problems, which I think shows the true dystopia of the Star Trek Federation,

Simone Collins: Well, though this, this at least shows me that the writers are trying to frame these things as bad because in so many of the Star Trek series, the captains struggle with. The conflict between following Federation rules, right.

They frame it as bad

Malcolm Collins: in a lot of ways without making her a retired professional investigator for Star Fleet. It's not

Simone Collins: like she, yeah. But one of the big tensions of Star Trek, I mean, starting with the original series, was, you know, captain Kirk constantly breaking the rules. And going against the federation's wishes.

Malcolm Collins: So I, I understand, but the point here being is the federation itself is not, when Kirk goes against it, it's like her, to her, I'm against the bureaucracy. It's not like this is a racist military dictatorship when that's the reality. And, and within Kirk's time, a sexist one as well, which we'll talk more about in a second.

Now, earlier I mentioned that members of the military dictatorship. IE of the military cast are outside of civilian law. So let's dig into this more deeply. Court Marshal, TOS, season one, episode 20. Kirk is tried for negligence after a Truman's apparent death. This trial is a Starfleet tribunal and not a civilian court.

Even though the alleged crime occurred while at a star base, a federation facility, there is no indication that the civilian courts have justification over star fleet officers. That's a huge red flag. Hmm. Then you have the menagerie TOS season one episodes 11 to 12. Spock commits an act of mutiny by taking over the enterprise to help his former captain.

Again, he's tried exclusively by a star Fleet tribunal with no civilian oversight. Star fleet officers are only ever tried by military courts, even for crimes that might normally fall under civilian jurisdiction. Eg. Manslaughter of mutiny star fleet, not civilian institution is the final arbitrary of justice for members of starlee.

No, I want to contrast them. Anything you wanna say before I go further?

Simone Collins: I just want to hear more. This is so changing the way I look at Star Trek.

Malcolm Collins: So let's contrast Star Fleet was the rege, right? Who are often portrayed as the capitalist bad guys, which again, I think is, the star sh like communists telling on themselves of how evil their utopia is and, and, and how they are unable to portray even their worst enemies.

It's really that bad. So the stated ethos very similar to modern progressives of Starfleet is for the betterment of all, and for the Fenian Alliance, it's profit, it's everything. But if you look at the actual ethos of Star Fleet, it's service to a military hierarchy. And if you look at the actual ethos of the Fari, it's free market and contract law.

If you look at the primary drivers of, of your role within society, it is only self-actualization with via star fleet. Within Star Fleet, you do not appear to have status outside of a military command ion,

Simone Collins: right?

Malcolm Collins: And then wealth accumulation via trade. What's, what's interesting here is the like negatives.

That happened within society. So let's look at like nepotism. Mm-hmm. Do elite inherit privilege in the federation? Yes. We see Wesley Mariner and Jake Picard's aristocracy. And for any society, no children must earn profits to gain status. Can low status citizens rise? Theoretically within star freely, but it appears to be heavily gate kept within Farge society, yes, anyone can become rich if they follow the rule of acquisition, familial favoritism ubiquitous and unacknowledged.

But within Farge it's explicitly discouraged. Even Cork and rom fight for status and competition. And these are two brothers, right? So you do have a degree of like caring about your family, but they fight amongst themselves to earn status within the society. And what's interesting is for any society punishes failure and rewards competence regardless of background, whereas the federation pretends its meritocratic while advancing the children of officers and diplomats through unspoken patronage.

Now, let's see the consequences of this. Let's see, major wars. Okay, Federation, you've got the Earth Rolin War, you've got the Klingon War, you've got the Kardashian Dominion War or the Kardashian and Dominion War. And then you've got the Borg. The Farini have no major wars that we're aware of, huh? Attempted genocides.

Yes. The Federation. You have section 31 against the founders. Farini, no genocides. And also by the way, if you are under the misunderstanding that Farini are slavers, they are not, there is no confirmation in anything in Star Fleet that Fary have ever owned slaves. And I was asking in ai, but like, would they, given what we know about them and they're like, probably not, they would see it as economically inefficient.

Um mm-hmm. Which is actually true of slavery. If you look at Earth's military history, right, economic history, they, it hugely hurt the South's economy long term.

Quote from Show: Look, I know the Kardashians can't be trusted. I know the central command would like nothing better than to destroy the federation colonies in the demilitarized home.

Then you agree with our position? Not for a second. Why not? Because your position is illogical. Do you propose to lecture me on logic?

It all comes down to the third rule of acquisition. The third rule, clearly states never spend more for an acquisition than you have to logical,

you want to acquire peace? But. How much are you willing to pay for it? Whatever it costs. That's the kind of irresponsible spending that causes so many business ventures to fail. You're forgetting the third rule right now. Peace could be bought at a bargain price and you don't even realize it.

You forget the weapons they already have. They have weapons. You have weapons. Everyone has weapons. But right now, no one has a clear advantage. So the price of peace is at an all time low. Don't you get it? Attacking the Kardashians now will only escalate the conflict and make peace more expensive in the long run.

Malcolm Collins: That's another episode. Espionage and regime change, standard practice for the federation. We see no instances of the farge doing this military expansion.

The federation does this all the time. Expansion backed by armed vessels. In the farge, no, we see no colonialism or expansionism. But what's I find really fascinating is the treatment of women in Faren culture. Women have no rights. They can't work and they're not supposed to wear clothes.

So very, I forgot that right? Very chauvinistic culture. But what is interesting is that this is admitted with in Farini culture, Uhhuh, and it's something that they are working on. What is they are?

Simone Collins: I don't remember there being any effort to change

Malcolm Collins: that. Oh, there's a huge plot point in S nine. Okay. And, and the culture is undergoing massive upheaval and a lot of forgi don't like it.

And it's I, I, I love the line like.

Speaker 2: It's all Moogie's fault. He's been polluting Seth's mind with notions of equality and compassion.

You can't even dump industrial waste anymore because it might harm the natural habitat. I'm supposed to start worrying about animals now. Look how they live. Wallowing in dirt. Sleeping in trees. That's not natural.

And don't even get me started about this whole labor rights thing. What have we come to if you can't demand sexual favors from the people in your employ? I made a report that over 40 percent of the population no longer believes that you have to buy your way into the divine treasury when you die.

Malcolm Collins: you know, like delightful. That's no, but it's, it's, it's, it is a society that has problems but is working on them. What is interesting about Women in the Federation is they are a systemically discriminated underclass, but there is no feminist movement within the federation or acknowledgement of women's problems within the Federation which shows that there is no goal to fix it, unlike within farini culture.

So, the, while the Federation brags about gender equality, it mostly just uses female characters as caregivers, Dr. Crusher Ko victims Tori's constant assaults or sidelined to Hasha Ya and sro or Kira's late stage arc. Was Taha

Simone Collins: Yaar the badass bodyguard who died? I

Malcolm Collins: don't remember. Law and Justice because she

Simone Collins: was.

She was really badass. She could. In what series? Kick and punch. The blonde woman with the short hair. Who does die? Yeah. Tasha Ya. No, she's badass.

That's why I was thinking like, maybe this isn't true. 'cause I was thinking at first of the empath who I grew up with, like that was, what was it? The next generation who like was way too like, like, oh, I'm here to talk about how people are feeling. This is

Malcolm Collins: this. Pointing out that in her late stage arc, she was sidelined.

Simone Collins: Right, but, oh, well, and I guess Lieutenant Ya just killed. She just killed off. I don't know if that's more about the society or if it's about the writers though.

Malcolm Collins: Well, Simone, the writers create the society like in the same way that the writers didn't mean for the world of star strip troopers to actually be a techno utopia.

They created it by accident. The writers of Star Trek didn't mean to create a sexist, racist, dystopian, but that is what they created. If you actually read the works and we, with the wound walking around of the little mini skirts implications of them, yes. It's like, oh, we created a gender egalitarian utopia.

But then all the women are in like caregiver roles or unimportant and it's like, wait, wait, wait, wait a second. Why? Why are there so few women commanders? Why are there so few? Like if this is actually gender egalitarian in the way you say it is. Why is it structured this way? And the only explanation is, is that everyone's being forced to lie based on some sort of like military dictatorship and not talk about it.

Hmm. To talk about what I mean here, look at the sexualized uniforms, particularly in TOS, in TNG, female officers that were forced to wear miniskirts, sometimes paired with high heels. And they're often referred to by their appearance and not their rank. So while males, it'll say by rank or whatever, they'll be like you is the long hair or whatever.

In TNG, season one, some female crew members are seen as in scant uniforms short dresses with bare legs, while men never are even in series. Like Voyager seven of nine is forced to wear a skin tight catsuit with visible scenes, but it looks so good outlining her breasts and genitals. So like, but this isn't Starly, but again, this is like what we're seeing with in the show.

That's true. Which shows the sexism of the writers. This demonstrates and market

Simone Collins: dynamics be market dynamics, you know, I mean, it's a, it's a TV show, but

Malcolm Collins: it, it, it demonstrates an underlying cultural expectation that women in Starfleet present as physically appealing. Well, you can say that, but like, we know from Conan that like physically appealing men are also sell well, but Starlee doesn't have those, so That's true.

You can't, you can't say that dynamics. And then let's talk about power dynamics and harassment by commanding officers. Mm-hmm. In TNG, the naked now data and Shar ya have sex While under the influence of mind altering substance, a clear violation of consent norms brushed off without consequence. Kirk routinely engages in flirtation seduction with female officers, subordinates and alien women never facing disciplinary action.

In fact, that's never even brought up. Despite being grossly illegal. Was in what, what about his second in command? If the guy with the

Simone Collins: like. Goatee in the dark hair. He's the one who slept around more. He was the mans Slott

Malcolm Collins: of, so you're thinking Riker, er, Riker was shown, is hitting on women across ranks and alien species while technically being in command over them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. He has, would like really abused

Malcolm Collins: his,

Simone Collins: he would

Malcolm Collins: be in jail in the US military Riker. He really, he would be canceled so hard so hard, well, not canceled. What they're doing is illegal. They are forcing their subordinates to deal with their very aggressive sexual advances. Like this is not okay.

Broadly speaking, this is a military dictatorship. Even within current earth structures of government, like you would not be allowed to again, act this way in most developing countries. Militaries

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Speaking of the type of unprofessionalism we would only expect from a military oligarchy. Can we talk for a second about how most of the ships in the federation have fully stocked bars within them? These are military ships that is not normal. That is the type of thing you would only expect from the type of military where the, I guess the military also runs the government and where the commanders are just like, well, I just need to go to a bar during the day, during a a work day, which they do regularly.

Malcolm Collins: Many women in the federation. Okay. We already talked about this. Not having like real roles like there, doctors Crusher, PCard Norris.

I mean, Dr. Crusher was women caregivers or emotional supports like Tori Kesser, Ezra. Combat engineering and command are far more frequently occupied by men. And what, that's true.

Simone Collins: That is true. I mean, like, I, I, I keep trying to defend with just Dr. Crusher and Tahi Ya, but at the same time when I think about Star, she's a.

Starship Troopers and like the women and like there, there's just no distinction. It's just wherever your merit goes, that's where you're gonna be.

you specifically requested transfer from Fort Cronkite to this training unit, sir. I heard it was the best, sir. It is the best, but what makes you think you're good enough?

Well, that's the kind of gal who makes squad leader.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Women are in the military at the same rate as men. Women shower with men, women have, there's no distinction between them in Starship Troopers.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And what's interesting as well is while there is an instance where somebody uses his like dates as subordinate he explicitly walks around it. So if you remember the, the female character who was dating Rico at the beginning and then ins up dating the guy in the Star Fleet their version of Star Fleet.

Mm-hmm. The, the fleet it's called when he's training her, he flirts with her. Mm-hmm. And he mentions like, you know, flirting with a senior commander, like that's a. Something you're gonna need to get approval for. So it's applied that like you're allowed to do it, but it's something that is to some degree monitored.

And, and that he sees is like, it's clear that he's a little uncomfortable with it at first. So it is allowed, but it has to happen through sanction roles. This is not true within Starly, but what is more important than all of this is despite the sexism that is at the heart of Star Trek's world, there is no feminist movement shown in Federation Society.

There doesn't even seem to be tolerance for a feminist movement. The, the, there is no structural reforms. There is no acknowledgement of power imbalance or ever an acknowledgement of sexual misconduct, as far as I'm aware. And, and there are no cultural institutions to address this. It doesn't even appear to be somebody you can bring to, Hey Rikers been really flirty with that subordinate that does not appear.

Okay. Now contrast, this was the Faren who while they have open sexism, there is a clear feminist resistance and they show legal and cultural structural change over time. But now I wanna talk about the replicator thing because this really got me.

Simone Collins: Okay. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So Star Fleet gets guaranteed access to replicators quarters medical care, travel, and holodeck.

Mm-hmm. If you're a senior person, yeah. A replicator use is frequently described as being rationed or restricted on ships and colonies. So this. Some form of internal currency or point system exists not public for using the replicators. Access is centralized and controlled, not truly post scarcity, and civilians likely do not have replicator access.

Mm. Canon examples DS nine. During the Dominion War, replicator use is rationed. Voyager energy for replicators is limited and prioritized by command. Lower decks suggests that even junior officers and star fleet have less access to perks than command level officers. Federation credits a shadow economy.

Canon references to federation credits include buying passage encounter at FairPoint, gambling the royale and dealings with outside cultures. Cork accepts them, yet they are never shown in use by ordinary federation civilians on earth. This suggests like civilians never talk about earning credits.

Only surf flight personnel get to use them, which suggests some sort of like. Separate economy that is unique to this military cast of individuals within Earth?

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. One, one person was positing that federation credits must be used for like really big purchases like ship ship building has been described in federation credits terms and then with trade with other species, but not something used internally within the federation.

But people were instead given ration like energy associated rations that were most likely seem to be associated with replicator reuse. But you're finding no evidence that civilians have access? No, I, I'm

Malcolm Collins: seeing instead, some individuals appear to have federation credits to their name, which implies that federation credits are, are something that federation officers grift.

Now, if it's not something that you're supposed to have as an individual, somehow they end up gaining access to them, which again implies a, a corrupted system.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that's a little suspicious.

Malcolm Collins: And it's also interesting that they wouldn't use Gold Press Platinum. By the way, if you're wondering why Latin is often used in the Starship Star Trek universe it is because it cannot be made by replicators, which again implies that replicators are not that hard to use if it completely destabilizes the economy of all other things.

Simone Collins: Sure.

Malcolm Collins: So, Federation seems to run on a dual economy resource allocation internally rations, replicator access credits for external use in limited perks. This resembles a command economy layered on top of a military benefit structure, not a free market or UBI model. As some people attempt to argue they have.

Another really interesting point here before we get to the more on the, the way the replicators work. There is apparently a lack of a civilian media press or dissent. There's almost no mention of independent journalism or critical public media. Jake Cisco tries to become a war reporter and is pressured to self-centered by the federation military.

The Federation has no visible elections, civil forums, or debates about policy in most series. Yikes Voyager, no oversight of Jane Wade's command. Despite life or death stakes for an entire mixed crew. Colonization equals federation. Expansionism. The federation claims to respect non interference prime directive, but it settles new worlds with abandon, brings in new species and absorbs them into its economic and legal framework and refuses to let members leave without major political crises.

Details, eg. Details towards negotiations and the marquis territories. Oh, I mean, so it's like we very urban monoculture. It tries to bring people in. But you can't leave and you need to follow their cultural norms once you're in

Simone Collins: diversity victims, like you say. Yeah. Wow. Wow.

Malcolm Collins: Now an interesting thing is as well, is this isn't even a particularly like.

Beneficial, what I'm saying, benevolent system to live in. So you can look at regional Barclay, who's in TNG and Voyager. He's a non neural typical officer. He what does that mean? Mean he's he's autistic. Yeah. He's coded as neurodivergent. So social anxiety, speech hesitancy, avoid coping mechanisms and excessive behavior.

Holodeck addiction how he's treated. He called holodeck addiction. So he's named Broccolini by Riker and laforge condoning it. And note here that Riker is the one who constantly sexually harasses people and yet has a position of power. Yeah. He is competence is doubted. Despite clear technical genius, he saves the ship multiple times.

He is pre pressured to normalize his behavior to fit in with the crew. He's constantly under informal surveillance by his peers and superiors. When he's later involved with the Pathfinder Project in Voyager, his mental health struggles are used as a reason to distrust him even when he's right. No, no.

Let's talk about how racist the system is. So we'll talk about nod from DS nine, who is a Regi. He is not allowed to apply to the Star Fleet Academy, which remember is a, a key access point to this military command structure, right? Which I think shows not a meritocracy at all. Yeah. He must be sponsored by a star Fleet command officer.

Cisco. Cisco initially refuses assuming no is making a joke. He must go through multiple tests of character to be proven it's worthy. Once he admitted he's treated with suspicion by some and must overperform to I respect, he faces severe trauma in the siege of AR 5 58 and loses a leg, which becomes a major character arc improving his loyalty.

The problem is, is that we know that you have like Wellesley Crusher who just gets in based on nothing and gets fast tracked because he, because he's a

Simone Collins: whiz kid. Malcolm, give him a break.

Malcolm Collins: Because parents are in the federation. But, but you, you, you know, you constantly see this. Now if we're gonna contrast this with the star Tre troopers

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: In the Star Trek Federation voting rights universal, but the civic institutions seem to have no power limited to veterans. And this is important, by the way. Active member military members cannot vote in Starship Troopers. You have to, Oh. Yeah. You

Simone Collins: have to finish your military service to get the right to vote and to have

Malcolm Collins: kids.

Yeah. And this is also never said was in the show, but being a civilian and getting the right to vote does not actually mean joining the military. If you're a pacifist, you can do it as well. If you're severely injured or severely like retarded, you can still do it. About Rico's

Simone Collins: parents were really against his military service, like the kind of main protagonist, and yet, and, and he was kind of rich and could have been a private citizen, nepo baby in that world.

However, does that mean his par, one of his parents had to have served or both to have been able to have him as a kid?

Malcolm Collins: No, you do not need, it's actually said very explicitly within the show, you do not need military service to have a license to have a kid. It makes it easier to do the application.

Simone Collins: Mm. Like you said, you, you're more likely or you don't, you, you bypass a lottery perhaps.

Malcolm Collins: No. It's likely that you otherwise need to prove competence or utility, which is why Ricoh's parents were able to have kids because they're reaching successful. Oh, okay. IE it's a sane society sorry, I don't wanna be overly right. Well, yeah, I mean they're,

Simone Collins: they're producing not net drains on social services, but rather children who are likely to be high taxpayers and Ricoh being an nebo baby, private citizen would've been a high taxpayer.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Military control, defacto control by Star Fleet. The military does not have direct control over civilians in Starship Troopers, and actually civilians are critical of the military and media. You do see media propaganda was in it, but you see a lot of ci ci citizens who are critical of the military in the Starship Troopers universe, which suggests a critical independent media.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You do not have in the star tre troopers universe political participation you mean, which

Simone Collins: you do not have in the Star Trek universe.

Malcolm Collins: Star Trek universe almost zero political participation. Whereas in Star Trek Troopers, you have a clear civil contract. Service equals voice. And remember, service does not have to be military service.

That is implied in the movie, but it's never said in the movie. So I'm gonna default to book rules. Mm-hmm. Which is if, if you, if you are pacifist or you have some major injury or you have some major retardation, they give you like civil work. So no you don't have to be in the military. It just means you have to make sense.

Well,

Simone Collins: and also coming from a family of wealth doesn't mean that you get. Promoted to some high or kush position because Rico, again, the rich Nepo baby gets put on like the front lines of ground troops.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You don't, students clearly weren't as

Simone Collins: wealthy got

Malcolm Collins: high level the position because they're competent.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Also consider how distant and protests are treated in the two universes in Star Trek Federation. If you look at like the marquees, you are actively hunted and murdered for dissenting. The guy in the wheelchair who gets hanged. That is because he was an anti-war terrorist, which is Oh, right.

Simone Collins: No, he, yeah. Committed, he committed acts of terror, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, through protesting the war which is an act of terror, act of terror when it's a war to save our species, first of all, come on, you've gotta be, you've, you've got to have a degree of patriotism for the planet, Simone. You know,

movie quote: Bowing to a rising popularity all across the Federation, Sky Marshal Fidd declares that while religion is acceptable, peace is not.

Malcolm Collins: but even when leftists are trying to paint them as evil I looked at this guy who they hanged and I was like, thank God they hang that guy.

He seemed like a real douche canoe.

In related news, peace terrorist Elmo Gonniff and 51 of his closest friends were hung this morning

but they can't silence you! F the Federation! You will not take my voice! You will not take me! You will not take away our power!

F k you all! F k you! F k you all! F k the Federation!

Malcolm Collins: Wait, are you saying he didn't

Simone Collins: actually commit a violent act of terrorism and he really just, probably not.

Malcolm Collins: But what you see is when the, the form of terrorism that's being committed is not going to lead. Potentially to the extinction of humanity. It is allowed within the federation.

We know this because of the radical Mormon separatists who settled in bug space and ended up instigating the entire war. We know this because they were not hunted down and they were not murdered as they might have been, was in federation territory. For, for disagreeing outside of Feder, like the marquees outside of federation territory with federation command and ideals.

Mm-hmm. So, we know fair point that they, they were allowed to do that which shows that only sort of direct challenging is what's, is what's dealt with. And I'd also know that it does mention that that was the most mass executions in a day since the 21st century,

in what many believe to be the all time record for executions in a single day since the 21st century.

Malcolm Collins: which means that they were not used to executing that many people.

So, you know, it shows that they. And, and I'd also point out to you, Simone, that they were much more thorough in how they handled it. Like the federation, they go out, they attack these people who basically have no reason to be attacked. They're just trying to defend themselves. And in, in, in the Starship Troopers we learn that this terrorist you know, they dealt with his friends and family as well, which was his closest friends and family, as they say.

Which ensures that this kind of descent doesn't spread throughout the federation. So you're

Simone Collins: saying at least in, in the Starship Troopers universe, they finish what They start,

Malcolm Collins: they handle it, yeah. Citizenship and autonomy? In, in, in Star Trek is implied, but vacuous dual tier within Starship Troopers, but there doesn't appear to be that many restrictions on non-citizens past a political power, opaque, elite, nurtured star.

Fleet Academia is for Star Trek. And again, that's why the left is like it so much. It's a world that is ruled by what they see as the educated elite.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. But

Malcolm Collins: within Starship Troopers, it's a pathway that's open to all through contribution. Right. And, and, and note here, there are no cases that I'm aware of, of wealthy civilians in the Federation.

Whereas you do see this in Starship Troopers. True. And whilst outside the military is rare and aristocratic like Picard's Vineyard it's explicitly allowed within Starship Troopers which also think about female leadership. In Star Trek, it's mostly tokenized. Mm-hmm. Whereas in Starship Troopers it is competent and respected like dizzy and it aban is well and isn't.

Simone Collins: There's a female ski marshal on the second one. Right.

Malcolm Collins: Mm. To hot. She's in the first Sky. Hart Marshall to Hot Maru. The person who runs all of society is a black African woman.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Who

Malcolm Collins: won via an open election when somebody else wasn't doing a good job. We do not see Federation members replaced often when they don't do a good job.

And yet this is seen repeatedly in Starship Troopers. People who do bad jobs are fired despite what connections they have. Now let's talk about replicators in power demands. Warp drives versus replication. Warp cores generate massive power outputs capable of bending space time. Holodeck use transporter and force field to render realtime multisensory environment, transporters, disassemble, and reassemble matter at a quantum resolution.

These technologies use vastly more energy and are vastly more complex than replicators, which we know are simplified transporters. That's how the technology works. Okay. They basically have a, a template of like what you would want to transport and they just replicate that template over and over again.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: If power consumption was really the issue, we would see things like holodeck and warp travel be more limited in their use, and yet we see no rationing, which implies that the rationing is used to create fake scarcity.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: An interesting thing with replicators is corks bar and replicator tokens. So Corks bar uses replicators at his bar, but not for free. He must pay for use using tokens of some kind. And to me this implies some kind of limiting mechanism because we know that d phase nine is powered by a, I forget what it is, some kind of fusion reactor chair, but it certainly wouldn't be having issues with replicators in a bar.

Mm-hmm. So, and, and, and this is to the extent where he has to import ingredients to make his food which to me implies shenanigans, if I'm gonna be honest

Simone Collins: or at least false scarcity. Mm-hmm.

Sorry for those who fail to follow my logic here. Transporting food to a deep space station definitely costs more energy multiplicatively than using a replicator to create that food at the Space Station. Given how replicators work. What this almost certainly means is that the replicators are being regulated to create false scarcity.

Simone Collins: At the very

Malcolm Collins: least, now the final I. Big, scary thing about the universe is the total absence of AI or near total absence of ai.

Simone Collins: Well, what, what about the, the ship white computers Come on. They're constantly talking to computers.

Malcolm Collins: But they're not sentient and they're not even as capable as like GBT or something like that. Well, there's data. He's self-aware. He's, he was made independent from the federation by Dr. S. Oh. So we'll get into this.

Mm. So there is a near total absence of ai, yet they have near magical computing systems, quantum level data processing warp drives, replicators and transporters. And yet there's no evidence of star fleet ships with a GI co-pilots civilian access to general AI assistance or AI run governments, courts, or research institutes.

Keep in mind, that's one of the first things I would suggest most societies will implement with AI is AI courts. I would trust in AI to judge me in courts, peers, I'm very the monarch when they're like judged by a trial of your peers.

it's a trial by jury and it's up to your peers to decide how dare you. That repulsive display of humanity out there. No way.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no thanks. These, this, these people are not my peers. But voice interfaces like Lar cos we see they are smart but not sentient.

They no AI rights discourse outside of data and no widespread AI usage for command diplomacy or logistics. Mm. Clues as to why it may be outlawed and restricted. And keep in mind that these outlaw and restriction is kept from the average citizen because they appear to not know why when they're talking to data.

Right. Like they appear to think this is a new technology. Which is also shocking to me. Oh, this guy programmed this AI out of nowhere was no understanding of how AI works. No. It appears that he probably had a vast understanding of how AI worked and he used that to program data and his brother. But anyway,

Simone Collins: that's interesting.

Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: TNG measure of a man Starly considered deconstructing data to mass produce him. This is presented as a new dangerous frontier. The legal status of AI is undefined, and it is property by default. Dr. Song's backstory, TNG plus Picard. Nen song worked in isolation and off the grid. His work was not sanctioned by Star Fleet or the Federation.

In later episodes, Picard it is revealed that since our band after the Mars attacks solidifying the legal precedent. So we actually know from the series that synthetic humanoids were banned a long time ago in Earth's history during the Mars attacks which explains why data had to be made off the grid and why you don't see ais.

Hmm. It also explains why on early ships, like in Voyager, what they use for processing is Ural gel packs instead of electronics, because they're trying to get away from synthetic AI because it is likely illegal, but it is likely. Secret that it is illegal, and a lot of people do not know that anyone has the capability to make it.

That's my only guess. It it exists within our technological timeline is that AI was made illegal by the government in the same way that they made a genetically modified humans illegal, likely afraid of anything that could disrupt their existing power structure.

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: and it's worse than that. The, the ship basically goes around and attempts to murder any smart ais they find.

So, if you look at return of Aons this is System Laundry Grown, a planet AI created by a long dead prophet. Sorry, A planetary AI created by a long dead prophet named launder room. It remains peace and order through psychological conditioning, cultural programming, and absorbing dissenters into conformity.

Society is nonviolent, serene and orderly, but stagnant and uniform. Not that different from a lot of Starfleet stuff, but okay. Periodic festivals purge chaotic behavior and allow for catharsis. What does Kirk do? He confronts launder, run. He uses logic, quote unquote logic to prove that the AI is harming his people by denying gross and freedom.

And then he overloads and destroys launder run. Murdering it. There's no systematic violence or exploitation shown. People are healthy, closed, housed, and peaceful. And they appear to be consenting to this. The system was benevolent to totalitarian, unlike Starfleet, which is just totalitarian. So I would read this as he has an order to go out and murder ais.

I mean, clearly this is against the prime directive. Why was he not punished for this? Let's go to the next one. The apple, TOS, season two, episode five. The system val, a massive subterranean computer is worshiped as a God. It maintains in dick society. People do not age or die naturally. They do not have sex for reproduction.

To keep the, I mean, obviously if no one's dying, you need to maintain population levels. That makes sense. Yeah. And they have complete social harmony and protection from harm. Val is fed by vi villagers who serve it and live in total material comfort. So what does Quirk do? He destroys Val, what?

And he leaves them suddenly mortal. So now everyone on the planet can die. Now die. What unprotected and culturally unprepared for what happens next? Was Val abusive? No. The people were happy, healthy, and never knew war, disease or death. Kirk imposes his ideology that it's wrong to prevent sexual autonomy and intellectual progress.

They're basically saying, I wanna have sex with these aliens. Oh my gosh, how dare

Simone Collins: you? So the one thing was just that they weren't banging. And so, yeah. No, I mean that classic Kirk, that, that is very, I, I couldn't bring myself to watch all of the

Malcolm Collins: originals. My actual read is, is I was trying to read between the lines, is a lot of Star Fleet has command to go out and look for intelligent ais and kill it.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: And I think, so this is the secret real reason. That they're going to plan? Well, I, I wouldn't be surprised if they do have a few secret objectives given that we know that Starfleet is basically lying to the citizenry about some stuff just from what we're going through right now, lying about their ability.

And also

Simone Collins: explain though why Kirk is able to get away with so much. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: Kirk, why did you do that? Slap on the hand, oh, you murdered their God whoopsie. Yes, they're gonna have to figure that out. But it makes a lot of sense if you view it as a military dictatorship that's attempting to avoid anything that could challenge its authority.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: So yes, very dystopian society. A very evil society and a, I like it because it portrays. Who the progressives really are at their core. They say they want gender equality. What they really want is women in miniskirts that they can sexually harass all the time. And keep in mind, there are far more sexual harassment scandals by democratic politicians and there are Republican politicians.

They are far more likely to, and, and this is because that's what they want. They want to gain power so that they can harass people. Or in Biden's case, sniff their hair.

Joke Scene: I was waiting for Joe and just staring at his desk, I decided I'd have a little look see inside the drawers. Uh oh, I think I might know where this is going.

I opened one, then another, then another. And inside every drawer, every single one, piles of human hair. For the first time in my life, I felt like I understood a president.

. As I was sorting through the hair, admiring the collection, in walked the man himself. There was no hiding what I had done, so I just put the hair back, shut the drawers, nodded my head, and said, Mr.

President? Hey, if he didn't want someone finding his hair collection, he should have locked his drawers. What? We all have a desire to be known, and he's constantly sniffing hair in public, it's not some big secret.

Malcolm Collins: It they, no, imagine if you saw Kirk sniffing people's hair the way Biden does, like subordinates or little girls. If you saw that on a show, you'd be like, oh, he's clearly the villain.

Like, why is anyone okay with this? But it's worse than that because. You also see that what they want is a world under their military control where anyone who doesn't agree with their ideology is silenced. Where there's no free press, where there isn't actual post scarcity, it's post scarcity for them at the top and nutrition cubes for their grunts.

And then for your average person, who knows how bad it is because we just don't see them at Star Trek.

Simone Collins: Well, so it kind of is a progressive utopia. It's just a conservative

Malcolm Collins: dystopia. It is a progressive utopia in, in, in what they really want instead of what they're telling you they want.

Simone Collins: Right. It

Malcolm Collins: is gay space communism.

And it shows how evil gay space communism is fundamentally. Whereas gay space fascism, which you have in Starship Troopers is a world with gender equality's world voting

Simone Collins: because they, you, there's no, there is private property. There is an underclass.

Malcolm Collins: Well, we don't know if private property functions the way it does in our world.

I mean, we know that Picard major general is able to inherit lots of land. Would the average citizen of the federation be able to, maybe not given some of the stuff we've heard. I mean, if they are saying, well, we are communist, in some ways, what they must mean is, well, top military commanders can own property.

Their family gets some special privileges. But the average citizen, I mean, it's almost implied. There must be a caste system. You know, so I don't, I don't buy that. And I, I, I, I see the movies as, and you can say, why do I see the movies and shows as designed as in world military propaganda? Because why else do we see almost no civilians?

Why are we never shown the way the average person lives?

Simone Collins: It's weird. I don't know. Growing up watching it as a kid, I was left under the impression that I. That was the only world there was, that there is no civilian life in this world. Well, because

Malcolm Collins: they don't see civilians as humans, fundamentally.

Simone Collins: Well, but I no, I just, I just assumed there weren't civilians that everyone Right.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and that's why you weren't aware of them. That's why you thought that, right. Like, but clearly there are, right. Which is just so contrasting with Starship Troopers,

Simone Collins: right? Like Yeah. Where Yeah. There's clearly a rich civilian life.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and everyone starts, doesn't necessarily love

Simone Collins: the military.

Absolutely. One of

Malcolm Collins: the things that I find so interesting about, you know, if you view it as military propaganda is you can watch shows where like Resley Crusher will like see a planet where there's like capitalism or racism and he'll be like. Oh my gosh, did we used to have this on Earth? It's so weird to think that they could still live this way and that we ever could have done this.

And here I am like, Hey buddy, why do you think this doesn't exist on earth? You are trained on federation manuals. Those are military manuals made by a group that we already know is willing to lie and murder people like y do because this is propaganda, right? Like, it's a, it is an organization that we know treats a number of humans as the genetic underclass and actively hunts them.

Like, what do you mean? Well, it's so weird that they're racist just 'cause they look a little different. Mm-hmm. It's like your government is racist and you are even aware of that particular part of their racism. You just don't contextualize those people as human. It really reminds me of the modern left where they're like, well, I.

You know, the Nazis did all these racist things where they treated some people of certain ethnic groups and sexualities as, as sort of an underclass. And, and then I'm like, well, you do the same thing. I never thought of that, but oh my gosh. But those people aren't really human. Is is basically what they think.

And I go, that's what the Nazis thought of the Jews. Like, the moment you contextualize a group is not fully human, and you have the right to do that. The moment you think you have the right to say, oh, racism only happens when this group does it to this group, and not when this group does it to this group.

Because you're like, well, power and privilege, but you are the one who justifies power and privilege. The Nazi thought, if you're using the power and privilege argument that Jews had power and privilege over them, you're aware of that, right? Like they, they didn't say, oh, the, the, the Jews are idiots or what?

No, they said this is a group with systemic power and privilege and that's why they must be put down. Which is exactly what you are doing, the exact mechanism you use to dehumanize people. And it's the mechanism that is likely used within the Starship tro Starship star Trek universe as well, and is why we need to fight for space.

Gay fascism

Simone Collins: yeah, justice fascism for the win.

Malcolm Collins: Because the, the reality is, is Space Gate fascism or Starship Troopers isn't actually fascism. It's a real democracy. Whereas Space Gate communism is actually a military dictatorship under a fascist rule.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, the key lesson is look at what is done, not what is started.

Malcolm Collins: Right, exactly. All right, love. You did ask. Hopefully I ruined Star Trek for all of you.

Simone Collins: I will never look at it the same again, but

Malcolm Collins: I'll still

Simone Collins: love it.

Malcolm Collins: Alright. Do you wanna do one of your pieces or one of mine?

Simone Collins: That's crazy. Oh. But anyway, so I was watching this YouTube video. It's this short five minute video of a woman who is married and in her forties and childless and trying to explain the reality of what it's like to be to childless as a woman in, in your forties. And she's talking about how she feels invisible and how vis-a-vis her friends who are parents.

It's always, you know, they take precedent, you know, she has to work around their schedules because they have to drop their kids off or doctor's appointment or pick them

Malcolm Collins: I was saying that they do, like, is she not, is she denying that they have more restrictions on their time than her?

Simone Collins: She's aware of

Malcolm Collins: it, but

Simone Collins: what's, what's crazier to me, and I guess this is something that's pervasive around many people who have gripes and personal gripes, is that that's not a, that's also the parents themselves being invisible.

That's the parents themselves having to put their needs after that of their children. Yeah. Like this, isn't it even like she kind of, she gives off this impression like the parents are getting all the attention. The parents are the ones who are validated when really it's the parents putting their children first because they have other lives that they're responsible for now.

Well, she wants

Malcolm Collins: the attention and she can't stand that anyone has attention other than her is what it sounds like.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I think a lot of it, it, it's, it's, it's like with the kids, it's, it's maybe she's resentful of the kids. More than the parents that the, these kids get attention. It's like your father saying like, why should I bother coming over for Christmas?

It's all about the kids anyway. And it's like, it's all about the kids. Thank you. Thank you

Malcolm Collins: for understanding that you, it is not about you old person. It is, it is not.

Simone Collins: And I think maybe that's, that's a more universal problem that childless people have. No, I think it's

Malcolm Collins: childless people of that generation that, you know.

Yeah. Because I

Simone Collins: think one, and, and she also highlights like, oh, people shame me for the free time I have that, you know, I choose to plan a cruise because I have free time. Which one? Like, we booked our entire week long cruise in like two hours and then did absolutely nothing else. There's no such, and for

Malcolm Collins: way more people than her like Yeah.

And there's no such thing as

Simone Collins: planning a cruise. Like we, we literally bought with points our cruise and fewer than two hours. And it was after like a lot of like finagling to try to figure out how to fit. Six people in a room. You

Malcolm Collins: know, these, these people very much do nothing with their lives and they expand the simplest of tasks into the longest I is well, but she hug as

Simone Collins: though she's been criticized for that.

When any of our single friends talk about their single friend activities, I respond with enthusiasm and praise. 'cause it sounds like fun stuff for the most part. Like, I don't, I don't get where these people not really judged. I mean,

Malcolm Collins: personally, you, you may do that in public, but you're like, what a waste of life, their life is.

Simone Collins: I don't know. They, they're, we have some friends who do like glamorous stuff that I love living vicariously through. And I, I think that that's great and it's great for them. But you know, like, so I'm not judging them and I never felt judged, ever, ever, ever. As someone who is very public and open about never wanting to have kids.

Never. I only felt celebrated for that. So I dunno where people are getting this. Judgment. But anyway, rant over. We can get started. I just had, I had to say because I just watched it and was like, how is this woman not aware of the profundity of her selfishness? That like other people are putting other humans ahead of themselves and she's criticizing them for, because they're not putting her first, 'cause they're not adoring her.

Malcolm Collins: All

Simone Collins: right.

Is that the coolest thing? Do you really like it? Toasty? Yeah. How do you turn the green one off you. Oh, with the magic key? Yeah. You, you put the key and turn the white then, then the green one.

You did it. Good job. Now when I do all lights back on, I am almost done. Good job. Oof. It's a lot of lights and a lot of buttons and toggles and switches.

Ah.

What the, look at that. Alright. Turn all of the lights off. Turn all of them off. Yeah, that looks pretty good. And what do you think, Titan? Are you sleepy? You're looking at me like I'm crazy.

You want some milk? Yeah. Yeah. I'll bring you some milk. No? Yeah. You sleepy? Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna bring you some milk. Dad. Mommy, I turned it off. You turned it on? I turned it. Oh, all off. And now you're saving batteries, right, buddy? Now we'll turn all of the batteries back on. Okay? I'm gonna get tightened some milk.

I love you guys.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe