The Federation is Not a Utopia

The United Federation of Planets from Star Trek is often described as a post-scarcity communist utopia. Gene “Big Rod” Roddenberry spent the later period of his career congratulating himself for the progressive nature of Star Trek, and he even started to inculcate later version of Star Trek with progressive themes, but this is largely marketing and not so much supported by the media itself.

 

The word utopia was coined by Sir Thomas More for the title of his 1516 novel about a fictional humanist better society in South America. “Utopia” literally translates from Latin as “no place.” The term has come to mean a hypothetical alternative and better society that may be grasped toward. This ended up creating an entire genre of fiction about better and perfect societies, and it’s dark mirror in dystopian fiction.

 

There is also the matter of “communist.” This word can mean a lot of different things. Along with “working class” and “socialism,” “communist” can be a technical term that means a specific thing, it can be a colloquial term with a loose meaning or it can be an empty insult that means nothing. The definition I’m working with for this piece is: a classless, stateless, moneyless society. Class in this context means how a person acquires the resources to live their life—do they collect rent for things they own or do they sell their labor to one of those rent seekers? The definition of the state I use is a typical Marxist one. It is the ideological and practical apparatus that supports the ruling class in it’s dominion of all other classes in society. This can contain the government, and especially the police and other methods of coercion. And finally there is money. Money is a commodity that stores value that can be exchanged.

 

Communism isn’t a utopian ideology. Indeed, one of the foundational texts of communist theory is Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels, where he lays out the progenitors to then current Marxist communism and compares them to the scientific socialism he and his compatriot Marx were building at the time. The reason that Marxist communism isn’t a utopian ideology is that Marx and Engels were attempting to found a social science of revolution, understanding how and why revolutions happened, and figuring out where it may happen in the future. Necessarily there is an element of speculating about what will happen after these revolutions, but it was rarely a major point in Engel and Marx’s work.

 

From this introduction you may expect a defense of the Federation as a communist society and not a utopia. Not so. It is instead a distorted echo of the civilization that produced it. And it’s pretty fucked up and bad, actually, if you read between the lines.

 

Star Trek was founded as a western in space. The Enterprise has a dual role as explorers and as a military force that pacifies threats to the Federation as it expands into the unknown. The Federation as it exists in the original series is a backdrop to occasionally come back to for an episode, silly bureaucrats who demand our cowboy heroes undertake dangerous projects for little practical purpose, or who threaten our heroes for just doing their jobs. In the time after the original series’ cancellation fans took the scraps of information we could gleam (the at-the-time progressive nature of the ethnicities of the crew of the Enterprise) and Gene Roddenberry’s progressive self agrandization and created an interpretation of the Federation as a utopian and socialist society. This fed Big Rod’s ego and became a central conception to how he saw the series in his later life as the franchise continued.

 

We only get a few tastes of what the “core worlds” of the Federation are like in the original series, but we see rather a lot of the Federation’s colony worlds. The first really good indication of what happens on these worlds comes in season one episode thirteen: The Conscience of the King. In this episode the Enterprise is summoned to a planet to investigate an actor who might be Kodos the Executioner. Kodos was the governor of Earth colony Tarsus IV where Captain Kirk grew up. A fungal infection destroyed the food stores and Kodos made everyone do Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery to figure out who would live and who would die.

 

The implications of this are obvious. Indeed, transporting food and basic supplies is often a b-plot in the background of episodes. The Trouble with Tribbles (The Original Series, 2x5) is predicated on the Enterprise protecting grain at a neutral outpost between the Federation and the Klingons.

 

While Starfleet personnel have access to replicators (machines that can print most non-living materials you may want) it is clear that access to this miraculous technology is limited. Logically, because they atomically construct items atom by atom they would require ludicrous amounts of energy to actually operate. They were introduced in The Next Generation as one of the gee-wiz wow technologies to make the show feel more advanced than The Original Series. In the time since then later shows in the franchise have retroactively fit them all the way back to before The Original Series, which doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, but they are clearly shown on screen. But I am more interested in analyzing the Original Series and Next Generation eras anyway. The Original Series is interesting for it’s disinterest in it’s own world building, while the Next Generation is interesting for trying to cobble together a progressive utopia out of what was presented in The Original Series.

 

Worf, eventually Picard’s chief of security, grew up on Gaunt, which is a “farming colony” (TNG 1x20: The Heart of Glory). If they are doing mass scale agriculture such that it’s the first thing you think of when you hear about the colony they have to be doing that for a reason. Now, it is entirely possible that this is a crank project by a crank agriculturalist. This isn’t a unique position. The Omicron colony visited by Kirk’s Enterpise was a back to the Earth low technology Space Amish farming colony, although destroyed by spores and radiation (TOS 1x25: This Side of Paradise). Likewise Captain Picard’s brother Robert ran the Picard vineyard in an antique fashion out of obstinance (TNG 4x02: Family). It is a bit curious that Robert is allowed to maintain the vineyard, however. It is unclear how property works, and that is one of the instrumental things for deciding how social classes work in society. Agricultural colonies clearly must exist, given the indications of resource scarcity depicted in the original series and continued in TNG.

 

The outlying colonies are dangerous places beyond lack of resources. The Federation often places them with little regard to hostile civilizations nearby. Cestus III was a colony world placed in an area disputed with the Gorn Hegemony, who are lizard alien xenomorphs who turn into guys in lumbering foam suits, who exterminated the colony (TOS 1x19: Arena). Delta Rana IV was another Federation colony world in the process of being set up that was destroyed by the hostile alien power the Husnock (TNG 3x03: The Survivors). Galen IV was another colony on the border with the hostile Talarian militia which came under attack and the human Jeremiah Rossa abducted by the Talarians (TNG 4x04: Suddenly Human).

 

Do they not scout these planets out at all when they colonize them? Are there thousands of colonies never referenced in Star Trek where nothing interesting happens?

 

It is clear that even if there isn’t a hostile government nearby there may well be a dangerous entity or environmental conditions that the Federation does not properly outfit it’s colonists to deal with. Gamma Hydra IV was a planet that briefly hosted a science station until a nearby comet with oldification radiation killed everyone (TOS 2x11: The Deadly Years). Quadra Sigma III was a mining colony where a release of explosive gas rendered the colony unusable (TNG 1x10: Hide and Q). Beverly Crusher (Chief Medical Officer of Picard’s Enterprise) grew up on Arvada III which ran out of medical supplies, forcing her to learn herbalism to help in medicine (TNG 1x21: The Arsenal of Freedom). A crystaline entity destroyed two Federations colonies (Omicron Theta and Melona IV) single handedly, one colonized after the first had already been destroyed (TNG 1x13: Datalore, 5x04: Silicon Avatar). Even long after colonization the Federation loses interest in the safety of their colonies. Pehthara IV was a long established colony world that was fine until an asteroid hit it (TNG 5x09: A Matter of Time). The Federation must have technology to detect asteroids and easily has the technology to prevent them from hitting a planet. Bersallis III was a Federation science outpost that was insufficiently armored against natural phenomenon on it’s planet, requiring the Enterprise to evacuate the colonists (TNG 6x19: Lessons)

 

At some point you have to accept that this is not a series of isolated accidents but a problem with how the Federation colonizes planets.

 

The biggest example of the Federation’s disregard for colonists is contained in the armistice they signed with the Cardassian Union. The Cardassian Union were a hostile alien power that the Federation fought a war with just before the start of The Next Generation, and who, a few years later while allied with the Dominion, fought another war against the Federation. During the brief period of peace between them the Federation sold out existing colony worlds to the Cardassians to appease them. Most notable about this is Dorvan V, a planet populated by the descendants of indigenous Americans. Picard’s Enterprise was dispatched to force them out of their homes and to another colony currently within the Federation’s sphere of influence. After nine hundred years of their ancestors getting abused by the descendants of white Europeans they were reluctant to abandon the planet. After a conflict the Cardassians agreed to allow the indigenous Americans to remain on their colony. It is unclear what happened here afterward, given the new war between the Cardassians and Federation a few years later whatever happened wouldn’t be good.

 

It’s a little bit unclear when many of the colonies were founded, but Federation colonies in the sector came under fire at Setlik III and Solarion IV. They may well have existed well before hostilities between the Federation and Cardassians began. But from all the evidence it is just as easy to presume they were fresh new colonies just outside a simmering war zone. The Federation clearly doesn’t care.

 

Elsewhere within the contested zone colonists who refuse the Federation handing them over to the Cardassians formed The Maquis. The Maquis is an anti-Cardassian insurgent group that seeked to defend the former Federation colonists. They pop up from time to time across Deep Space Nine, and compose a significant portion of the Starship Voyager’s crew, after many Starfleet officers were lost in their sudden unexpected transportation to the other side of the galaxy.

(TNG 4x12: The Wounded, 5x03: Ensign Ro, 6x10-11: Chain of Command, 7x20: Journey’s End, 7x24: Preemptive Strike, as well as uh, all of Deep Space 9 and the first half of Voyager).

 

In addition to all of that, the Federation very easily loses contact with it’s extent colony ships. Terra 10 was an extremely early Earth colony that was completely forgotten. They seem to have left Earth around the time mankind made first contact with the Vulcan people and developed faster-than-light travel, the Vulcan people being the positive Jewish stereotype aliens. They lived relatively well for a couple centuries until an ecological disaster caused them to emit a distress call, and Kirk’s Enterprise was the first Federation vessel to ever discover them (TAS: 1x11 The Terratin Incident).

 

The Mariposa colony ship went missing some time in the twenty second century and no one attempted to investigate what happened to them. It turned out they split off into two colonies, the Bringloidi (an entire civilization of Space Amish/Irish leprechauns) and the Mariposans (an entire civilization of clones). Luckily, (maybe not, they’re very annoying) when the star they were orbitting was hit with a massive dangerous solar flare Picard’s Enterprise was near enough to help bring the two colonies together again (TNG 2x18: Up the Long Ladder). Earth completely forgot about them.

It’s not entirely certain what the deal with Turkana IV is. It is the home of Tasha Yar, briefly Picard’s Security Chief before Worf. It previously had some form of relations with the Federation, but at any rate it fell into chaos and civil war. Was it a Federation colony? A human colony that predated the Federation or that rejected the Federation out of hand? There isn’t enough to go in in canon. What can be ascertained is that it’s a churning war-zone as of The Next Generation and has been for decades. The one time the Enterprise visited it one of the factions attempted to trick the crew into helping them win their intractable civil war (TNG 4x06: Legacy).

 

The Federation demonstrably has a large amount of resources that it typically puts toward exploring the galaxy. They could very easily follow up on colony ships that disappeared. All too often a Federation ship will happen upon a lost colony by complete accident. Indeed, something roughly similar becomes a plot point in Star Trek: Lower Decks (1x10: No Small Parts).

 

I’ve done some back of the napkin math based on a list of Federation and Earth colonies on Memory Alpha (the Star Trek wiki). Out of 73 colony worlds mentioned thirty-three of them have had some form of major disaster that could have been predicted; some kind of ecological disaster, an attack by neighboring hostile civilizations, that sort of thing. Out of those thirty-three with a major disaster thirteen of them were destroyed entirely. And I’m not even counting the Borg because that’s a threat that was on nobody’s radar until midway through The Next Generation.

 

This all leaves the question: If you’re living on Earth or Vulcan or Andoria or one of the other Federation core worlds why would you want to leave? There must be something in the core worlds that encourages Federation citizens to risk getting blown up in the next Klingon or Cardassian war.

 

The few peeks we get into civilians on Earth in the early franchise don’t give us a lot to go on. There’s three interesting hints we get in Family, one of the TNG episodes mentioned above.

 

First of all, when Worf’s human parents transport onboard the Enteprise there is immediately solidarity between Worf’s father and Chief O’Brien. This was the first firm establishment that there is a divide between enlisted staff and officers in TNG. Sergei also expresses disdain for officers (but is still proud that Worf himself became an officer).

 

The second interesting hint is that as soon as Picard’s old friend Lewis comes to understand Picard has been traumatized by recent experiences he attempts to poach him as the director for the Atlantis Project (an attempt to raise a new sub-continent in the Atlantic ocean). The leaders of the project are very excited by the prospect of acquiring a famous Starfleet officer such as Picard. This indicates a couple things. First of all, it indicates that news media is probably withholding a lot of details about the Borg incident immediately preceding this. Would they be so excited if they knew that a man who was just transformed into a weapon to destroy Earth might become their director? Starfleet does tend to go easy on people who are acting out of control (there are many incidents of Starfleet officers being mind controlled or possessed). But also being a Starfleet officer gives you a high cultural status. Would a Starfleet officer really be that useful in directing a large scale geo-engineering project? Whether Starfleet is a scientific or military organization is a premise in contention in the fandom. One of Big Rod’s major stated points of contention with the TOS movies in the 80’s were that it portrayed Starfleet as a military organization. In truth he objected because he didn’t have creative control over them.

 

The final thing is the most interesting thing, and it creates continuity errors with subsequent Star Trek canon. Robert and Jean Luc have an argument about whether or not Robert should allow a replicator in his house. Robert is a weird crank almost of the Space Amish variety. He operates the vineyard with at most a twentieth century level of technology, likely even lower than that, but we only see so much. In subsequent portrayals of the Picard winery where Robert is not controlling it there are countless drones flittering around. Jean Luc very quickly adapts modern technology for use there. Here, we see the occasional farm hands working on their knees among the grapes(there’s like one scene that’s an establishing shot. I think it might have been a long shot from the scene with Jean Luc and Robert fight in the mud, but in the continuity of the episode that wouldn’t make sense so they must be somebody else. Maybe grape thieves?). There aren’t even any terrestrial vehicles. And instead of using a common scientific scanner that definitely exists in the world, Robert tastes grapes to diagnose botanical problems. Robert would likely accept a replicator if it was something that existed when he was a young person, so clearly they are a recent advance, although now common on Earth. The other thing that is interesting is that the vineyard is clearly identified as the Picard family vineyard and property thereof. Their father operated the vineyard in a manner similar to Robert.

 

Replicators are clearly shown in Star Trek Discovery in common military use. Jean Luc and Robert would have grown up a few decades after this, so logically they must not have been in common civilian use by then.

 

A vineyard is infrastructure that is useful for operating society. In communist theory private property and personal property are not the same thing. Private property is something that serves a social purpose, whereas personal property are things you personally own. In a communist system it is unlikely that this sort of thing would be at least controlled along family lines. From the portrayal in TNG you could say perhaps there’s some cultural wine board that allows Chateau Picard to operate in this manner for historical purposes, but it is clear as of Star Trek Picard that it is owned and remained controlled by the family.

 

The other business we see operated on Earth in canon is Joseph Sisko’s restaurant. Joseph Sisko is the father of Ben Sisko, the commanding officer of Starfleet’s pretense at Deep Space Nine. The restaurant is a background element that shows up occasionally and is tantilizing but doesn’t really tell us a lot about the world. It is in a desirable location, New Orleans, but what does that mean in a world where one can routinely teleport from place to place? Indeed, Rom, an alien cadet attending Starfleet academy in San Francisco routinely makes the trip for authentic home not-cooked Ferengi food. There are background actors playing restaurant staff, but also Joseph Sisko clearly works there himself as the chef. None of the other restaurant staff have anything sizable to say, not giving a lot of context for why one might want to work at a restaurant in a post-scarcity society (DS9 4x11: Homefront, 4x12: Paradise Lost).

 

It is interesting but inconclusive that the two businesses we see operated on Earth are both owned by family members of Starfleet officers.

 

Commerce definitely exists as of the original series and animated series. Many minor side characters are traders, some reputable and some disreputable. The disreputable traders exist on the fringes of the Federation, such as Harry Mudd (TOS 1x6: Mudd’s Women, TOS 2x8 I, Mudd, The Animated Series 1x10 Mudd’s Passion) or Cyrano Jones (TOS 2x15: The Trouble with Tribbles, TAS 1x5: More Tribbles More Troubles). Both Mudd and Jones are scammers who are always involved in some scheme, some sort of mail-order-bride scam, smuggling exotic animals, this sort of thing. Their targets can be instructive for figuring out how the Federation actually operates. In Mudd’s Women Harry is trying to traffic wives to lithium miners who live in a hellish colony on the outskirts of the Federation and harvest vital lithium crystals (later dilithium) necessary for moderating the matter/anti-matter reaction in warp reactors and providing cheap energy to the galaxy. They are understood to own significant amounts of value for how horrible but vital their jobs are.

 

There is less evidence about reputable traders, but there are some hints in The Animated Series. Carter Winston was a wealthy trader from inside the Federation famous for his economic activities (TAS 1x6: The Survivor). The way he (or more accurately his impersonator) is treated in the episode feels very similar to a rich asshole today who laundered his reputation with philanthropy, but written by someone not aware that’s what’s going on. Think Bill Gates.

 

For a “wealthy” trader to even exist there must be some commodity to store value. There are numerous minor references to “credits” as some kind of money across the Original Series and it’s Animated sequel. In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Captain Kirk makes a reference that indicates that money doesn’t exist in the twenty-third century, although the crew understand the concept of it.

 

By the time of The Next Generation it is much more clear that the Federation no longer has any store of value for it’s citizens. When an unfrozen caveman billionaire from the far off future 1990’s is revived by the Enterprise Captain Picard is forced to explain that money doesn’t exist anymore (TNG 1x26: The Neutral Zone).

 

Wealthy traders persist on the periphery of the Federation. In The Most Toys (TNG 3x22) Data is kidnapped by Kivas Fajo. He has access to necessary raw materials that the Federation needs, and so the Enterprise crew must trade with him for them. The compound is extremely unstable and cannot be transported, which indicates that is also cannot be produced by the replicators. Generally the replicators are treated as capable of producing just about any raw material excepting dilithium and gold pressed latinum (a commodity used to store value among other nearby civilizations, presumably because it cannot be replicated). Fajo is one of many collectors that the Federation must occasionally deal with and the way he’s portrayed makes him feel more legitimate than Cyrano Jones and Harry Mudd decades earlier. “Collectors” collect rare objects, often times unique historical artifacts and the like, hence why Fajo kidnapped Data in the first place.

 

Historical artifacts still retain economic value. Vash is a Federation civilian who trades in historical artifacts. She attempts to obtain rare antiquities for her own economic benefit. I feel like the implication I get from her is that she would otherwise be immensely bored, and that’s why she goes on illicit digs and allies with deranged god-like aliens (TNG 3x19: Captain’s Holiday, 4x20: Qpid, and DS9 1x07: Q-Less). But regardless, she’s attempting to sell these things for profit, which is fairly unique among humans in this era of Star Trek.

 

Deep Space Nine hosted an auction of antiquities (DS9: 5x25: In the Cards). Deep Space Nine is on the periphery of the Federation and contains significant cultural sharing between neighboring societies. The Ferengi (the negative Jewish stereotype aliens) have a society based entirely around capitalism. Indeed, they use gold pressed latinium mentioned above as their money (in their early appearances they refer to it just as gold, but they clearly have access to replicators, latinum must have been invented to make this all less stupid, so just pretend like the references to gold are to gold pressed latinum, okay? Ferengi covet gold in TNG 1x05: The Last Outpost. First reference of gold pressed latinum: DS9 1x03: Past Prologue).

 

At this auction Jake Sisko, son of DS9 commander Ben Sisko, wants to acquire a rare baseball card for his father. He is so ignorant of the existence of trade that he must enlist his friend Nog, a Ferengi, to tutor him. We also meet another civilian, Dr Elias Giger, a deranged crank. He purchased items at the aforementioned auction (including the baseball card) and bartered with Jake for equipment for his weird immortality device. He must have money to purchase items at the auction, but also he doesn’t appear to be part of the Federations medical establishment. Logically, he must have obtained the money from people interested in his crank research. That means at least somebody within the civilian population in the Federation have access to money.

 

One final thing I want to comment on is the Federation’s concept of Justice. For an ostensibly progressive franchise it ends up talking about criminal justice fairly rarely. There are a few instances of trials, but they pretty much never find a main cast character guilty, and even in cases where main cast characters are punished this is over glossed over and forgotten very quickly.

 

There’s an episode of the original series specifically about how criminal justice is meted out in the Federation, and whooboy, it’s a doozey. In the decades preceding the original series criminal justice has been revolutionized by Doctor Tristan Adams who has invited the Neural Neutralizer, a device that directly alters the contents of a brain. The general theme of the episode ends up being “those dastardly do-gooders actually just want to torture criminals worse than just putting them in jail would do!” As I’ve said before, the original Star Trek gets credit for it’s progressive nature that it only earned in retrospect and does not live up to on any inspection (TOS 1x10: Dagger of the Mind).

 

By the time of The Next Generation we primarily see the military side of criminal justice. This makes sense from the perspective that most of the characters we follow are Starfleet officers. Two interesting instances are Nicholas Locarno and Tom Paris, two identical guys who committed identical crimes: they separately attempted dangerous tricks that ended up killing fellow cadets and then conspired to make it all look like an accident. Locarno was drummed out of Starfleet academy. Tom Paris instead was sent to a Federation penal colony on Aotearoa, which is still called New Zealand in canon (TNG 5x19: The First Duty, VOY 1x01: Caretaker). Whatever they did at the penal colony must have helped, because Paris goes on to be an important member of Voyager’s crew. Locarno went on to be a petty criminal who attempted a major act of space terrorism (Lower Decks 4x09: The Inner Fight and 4x10: Old Friends, New Planets).

 

The New Zealand penal colony must take civilian criminals as well. It is discovered that Dr. Bashir, chief medical officer of Deep Space Nine, was genetically engineered to improve his intelligence as a child. This is a serious crime in the Federation because of Earth’s Eugenics Wars and the danger posed by genetic augments. Ultimately Bashir’s father pleads guilty and is sentenced to two years in the same penal colony as Tom Paris (DS9 5x16: Doctor Bashir, I Presume). It’s a little bit troubling that the military and civilian justice systems do not seem to be separate. I’m sure this is a case of a writer going “hey, what prisons have we referenced before” and not thinking of the implications.

 

Bad world building!

 

The one final open question I have is in the context of political representation. The Federation Council is seen on many occasions in the background and occasionally we see a Federation President. As of the Deep Space Nine, Earth does not seem to have it’s own elected representatives and cedes political power to the Federation itself. The Federation president is relucant to cede practical power to Starfleet in an emergency but sometimes power does flow down the barrel of a phaser (DS9 4x11: Homefront, 4x12: Paradise Lost). It is interesting in this period that, while nearly all Starfleet personnel we see are human the Federation President at this point is an alien. Obviously this is an artifact of the expense of putting dozens of extras in the background in loaf, but it has implications for the lore (and they kind of paper over it in later versions of Star Trek at any rate). But what is the canon reason that so many Starfleet officers are human in The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager? That has to be an interesting no-prize. But to get back to my point, we never see how the Federation Council is elected. How is representation decided? What is the role, responsibility and powers of the Federation president? It is interesting that Earth doesn't seem so bothered to be governed by mostly aliens.

 

I think the actual canon explanation in TOS is that different aliens are acclimatized to different environments. Spock is uncomfortable but capable of performing on a human ship. Humans would struggle with the environment a Vulcan would be comfortable in, et cetera. This does break down a bit in TNG forward because we see mixed crews that are still almost entirely human.

 

So where are we? Why do people want to leave the Federation core worlds, either to live on dangerous colonies, or join Starfleet, or become grifting traders? The two angles I have on it are as follows. There are people with a natural wanderlust who don’t want to sit on a space couch and eat replicated potato chips forever. Or perhaps there’s something we are not privy to, some direct reason that the Federation is trying to steer people away from their core worlds.

 

The one thing you can say for certain is that a society where a sizable portion of it’s citizens feel the need to endanger themselves is no utopia.

 

But still, I love Star Trek. I think the creators (especially after the TOS movies) thought they were writing about vegetarian space socialism, even if they did fail to think through the details. And really, this is me trying to think through the holes in the world building. But you know, shit talk and dunk on me all you like. I love engagement.