Trek As Religion

I may have enjoyed reruns of Star Trek growing up but it was just one of the many television shows that were part of my childhood.  This would all change in high school.

For much of the 1970s, Trekkies were stuck watching the same old episodes in syndication but an animated series and feature film appeared before the decade's end.  After a few sequels, the franchise returned to television during my last year of middle school with Star Trek: The Next Generation.  The show was interesting but the first two seasons were a bit lacking.

Then for several reasons, I found myself embracing Star Trek like never before starting in 1989.  Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was in theaters and I thoroughly enjoyed it even though most fans didn't.  A new comic book series followed and that further captured my attention.

A few months later, I discovered FASA Corporation's Star Trek role playing game and all bets were off.  The company produced beautiful model ships which blended seamlessly with the established designs from the original series and movies.  Game supplements were well-written and highly imaginative.  FASA took elements from the original and animated series, books, and movies to create a very detailed Star Trek universe where past inconsistencies and errors were creativity explained.  In many ways, what they produced was far better than anything coming out of the Paramount Pictures studios.  FASA's products even inspired me to create my own characters and storylines.

Some of FASA's ship designs are still beloved to this day.

Eventually Star Trek: The Next Generation hit its stride and I really identified with the character of Lt. Barclay whose awkward shyness masked a very creative soul.  As I continued to feel lost in high school, Star Trek spoke to me in ways my Catholic religion didn't.  It presented a positive vision for humanity where profound questions about life were asked and the petty pursuits of this world were a thing of the past.

While Star Trek helped fill a void in my life, it also created a fair amount of isolation.  Building detailed models of starships was hard work that required countless hours of alone time.  I started wearing Star Trek pins on my Bishop Fenwick sweaters hoping to attract the attention of other fans but this only gave my bullies ammunition.  While friends listened to bands like U2, I was checking out soundtracks from the Star Trek films which featured classical music.  I nearly wore out my VCR watching the shows and movies over and over again. 

I eventually realized there just weren't any other die-hard Trekkies in high school.  Here was this wonderfully intricate universe of science fiction yet I couldn't talk to very many people about it.  Now I had an ax to grind.  I felt if my fellow classmates didn't appreciate Star Trek then they were rejecting me.  My love of the franchise turned into a shield that kept people at a safe distance.  If I felt left out of a conversation, I would make an obscure Star Trek reference to get back at them.  To some, I was becoming cold and insensitive.  In our teens we often fail to see how others perceive us.

At the time, being a geek was not very cool.  That's why I am amazed by how accepting society is today of all the things that made us outcasts.  During a visit to the 2016 Boston Comic Con, I saw plenty of people dressed as characters from Star Trek and a good number of them were female.  I thought to myself, "Where were these girls when I was getting teased in high school?"  From models to books to video games, the sheer economic power of today's geekdom is staggering.  However, it's also a double-edged sword.

Star Trek is supposed to be a universe where materialism does not matter but you'd never know it by all the merchandising fans lap up.  Will a Jean-Luc Picard bobblehead doll really bring fulfillment?  Doubtful.  Many place science fiction on a pedestal so high, it starts to resemble a religion.  I once knew a fan of Star Wars who watched the movies so much, it was like his version of going to Mass.

For a while, I too worshiped at the "altar of Trek" but in the end, it didn't lead to true happiness.  The time and energy I spent building model ships just wasn't worth it to me anymore.  FASA Corporation's license to produce Star Trek products was revoked by Paramount Pictures because the studio disagreed with certain aspects of the company's storylines.  Yet subsequent television shows like Voyager and Enterprise seemed to lack creativity.  The current movie reboots are just plain schlocky.

I've been a recovering Trekkie for many years now and while I still think it's important to be young at heart and have hobbies, there needs to be a balance.  Lately, society seems more juvenile than ever.  Are we even seeing the challenges that lie in front of us?  Time spent watching the same movie over and over again could be spent helping the poor or defending a cause.  How are we ever going to realize that positive vision for humanity if we don't do anything meaningful in the here and now to make it happen?