The Dark Past of Our Bright Future: Concurrent Histories of Star Trek: Voyager

The Star Trek franchise is frequently described as utopian, the bright future of humanity, Earth, and the universe. The time and society of the Starfleet explorers is said to have overcome issues of inequality, racism, sexism, hunger, war, capitalism, greed, and environmental problems. This is at the same time a radical fantasy of the future and an artistic and commercial product of our own time. In their travels across the galaxy, the Starfleet explorers also encounter different civilizations, often depicted or even described as reminiscent of various time periods of Earth’s history. Here, our imagined future can meet a metaphorical past, a piece of well-known history made Other. In this way, past, present, and future exist concurrently, and the past is made both vivid, close and alien.