Captain Kirk vs. World Destruction: Despots should watch Star Trek

What is happening on earth is terrible. Damn dictators like Putin to watch Star Trek, they would learn a lot.

This Star Trek crew could inspire more empathy among villains, our author thinks Photo: Star Trek/Evans/AF/Imago

Nobody needs clairvoyant abilities to know that in 500 years our present will be called the “Second Middle Ages”. Because what is currently happening on the planet called Earth is bad, is like plague and serfdom, is like inquisition and senseless carnage in the name of historical revisionist madness or blasphemous creeds – as it was then. It is not the Middle Ages of science and arts, but the Middle Ages of condemnation and death that our posterity will think.

Just watch Star Trek movies to understand that. Again and again the heroes of this epoch-making work, who live in the 24th century or so, are sent on a journey through time to our present, and their conclusion is devastating: They are appalled by the environmental destruction, air pollution and wars over tiny territories where you know the universe is so huge. Nation-state interests – someone from the 24th century can only laugh.

Okay, I see I’m hard to follow. Here’s a small attempt. Recently on the radio: a report about the destruction of the Baltic Sea pipelines. The commentator thinks that in the future countries will have to pay dearly to protect the technology they dump in the seas. And I ask which country protects what where on the open sea? Who what in territorial waters? Russia in German, for example, because Nord Stream is majority owned by Gazprom? I want to see that.

The whole thing is absurd, just as nation-state thinking is absurd in the face of international dangers – climate change, nuclear missiles, killer viruses, species extinction. Seen from space, what is happening on earth is a nightmare scenario. Alexander Gerst, the real astronautsaid something similar.

But how do you get the people who are knowingly destroying this planet because their horizons, which they consider to be the measure of all things, are limited, how do you get these despots, these Kims, these mullahs, these Putins in particular, to make themselves look at the earth from a distance? I do not know that either. But I have a vision.

I hope that an unknown force will mentally imprison these present and future dictators. In their captivity they are only allowed to pursue one occupation. You must have all “star trekWatch episodes from the last 57 years, Voyager, Enterprise, Deep Space Nine and whatnot. If they are through with all series, they start again from the beginning. They will become fans of Captain Janeway or Captain Kirk, Captain Uhura, Scotty or Seven of Nine, they will learn what Borg and Klingons are, they will love the shapeshifter Odo and various androids, they will wish to fight with the bathlete or to meet up with others for mind merging – oh, better not do the latter for now.

And they will learn through their Star Trek studies that cooperation is important. That humanistic responsibility and respect for life must be the basis of action, as the planetary federation does in Star Trek. That cohesion, foresight and love count. That it is important to be tolerant towards other people, to solve conflicts peacefully. And that starting pointless wars is pointless. You will learn that we can only survive if we strive for peace and balance.

In their mental captivity, the despots will realize their tinyness. And when they have matured internally after years of study, the Putins, Trumps, the Xis and Upsilons, disguised as Romulans, for example, are allowed to go to “Star Trek” conventions, i.e. to gatherings of “Star Trek” fans. And then, when they meet the real Star Trek actors there, they’ll be able to tell them, like them Skinhead to Michelle Nicolswho was Captain Uhura said: That they were assholes, despised others and did bad things, but that Star Trek made them good people.

Too simple? Yes, but. But so beautiful!