Star Trek is all about hope. Inequality, hunger, and capitalism are things of the past on earth. Every Starfleet officer is there because they want to explore the galaxy and better themself, not because they need to be. They’re professionals, who act with kindness and curiosity. They respect other cultures and want to understand everything in the universe. The problems they face are problems of ethics, science, and law.

For example, what happens when a new lifeform develops in the Enterprise’s computer circuits due to a space anomaly? Left unchecked, they’ll disable all ship systems and get everyone killed. But removing them will drive a species to extinction, it’s unthinkable. So now it’s a race against time to find a peaceful solution before everyone dies. Can we relocate the lifeform? Communicate with it? How can we both live and respect the lives of others? That’s a classic Star Trek problem.

Star Trek imagines that the petty problems of politics and violence that we experience today will one day be history. That the great problems of humanity can be solved. That in the future we will approach new problems with reason and empathy. A future that is better than now. That says “it’s all going to be okay in the end”, and makes you wish we could see things that way today.