Redefining the Future

Image description: Captain Picard (right) showing Counselor Troi a photo album of his family in the film Star Trek Generations (image obtained from TrekCore). A tragedy in the beginning of this film sets a lot of Picard's course for the rest of it, but does that course really make sense in the context of the 24th century? In this post, I explore how modern attitudes shape the future in our media.

Ever since I was very young, I’ve been fascinated by a concept known as "retrofuturism" – the idea of the future as seen through the lens of the past. As a Disney fan, two examples of this concept and how it shaped my thinking can be seen in Walt Disney World, in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom (described as “the world of the future that never was”) and in EPCOT, which stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Both of these areas showcased the creativity and vision of those who came before us; EPCOT even had a ride called “Horizons,” which focused on this exact thing, exploring “twenty-first century living” and the dreams those in the twentieth century had for what the future may one day look like.

I’m always excited by optimistic visions of the future because, even when these plans and predictions miss the mark, they tell us something very important and thus should be explored. When we look at the future that those who came before us pictured, there is a great deal to learn about their imaginations – and their limitations. And indeed, when we look at our own ideas of the future, we see where our limitations lie as well. Often times, works of fiction centered on the future believe humanity will come to a place where we’ve transcended things like war, poverty, disease, even hatred. But we often see that these views of the future are still severely limited in how they view what it means to be human and the ways that we as humans will relate to those around us.

I’ve discussed this phenomenon previously in essays about non-human entities and how sci-fi media treats them, but it’s a far broader topic than just that. Despite my love of looking to the future in media, I often find myself frustrated by the sadly limited ways our futuristic science fiction or fantasy staples tend to view sex and sexuality. While we can imagine worlds full of aliens, starships, and advanced technology that makes the world a better place, at the same time, we seem tragically unable to imagine worlds where sexual or romantic attraction – and the discrimination against those who don’t experience them – are not the controlling factor. 

So today, I want to explore that very thing, once again through the lens of my “Redefining” series, by examining how media tends to portray the future. Using my favorite sci-fi media as a jumping off point (yes, this is about to get very Trek heavy), I’ll be looking at the ways modern understandings of sexuality tend to color these creative imaginings of the future, and will be looking at the ways we can potentially redefine our conceptualizations of what's yet to come.

Spoiler warning! 

Star Trek: The Original Series ("The Apple")

Star Trek: The Next Generation ("Inheritance")

Star Trek Generations

Star Trek: Insurrection

Star Trek: Voyager ("Body and Soul"; "Life Line")

Content warning: Discussions of Aphobia/Asexual Discrimination

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How the Future Views Marriage and Families

Something I love about any good story is the portrayal of different types of families. When it comes to sci-fi media like Star Trek, we are treated to some amazingly unique families that show us how broad and meaningful that definition can be. For instance, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the creation of Data’s daughter Lal encourages Data’s human colleagues (and the audience) to reexamine their own definitions of love and family in poignant ways. Likewise, the crew of the titular lost starship in Star Trek: Voyager becomes a family despite their many differences, and the ways they help one another are inspiring examples of how diverse people can come together. And of course, beyond just these specific examples, Star Trek – and any sci-fi media – can show us diverse families and family structures that change depending on what strange new world we’re visiting this week.

However, despite these poignant examples of what families may look like in the future, we also have some examples that seem rather archaic in comparison. These examples stand in such stark contrast to most of the futuristic attitudes we see in Star Trek and beyond that they beg to be analyzed from an aspec lens. For example, let’s return to Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), specifically looking at the movies that were made following the conclusion of the series. During its time, TNG was always hailed as an optimistic, heavily utopian-focused vision of the future… and yet, in the TNG movies, we see how the utopian new age space crew of the future is still concerned about things like carrying on the family line or asking why attractive people never got married.

To cover these topics, I’ll start with the first of the four films – Star Trek Generations. The name of the movie refers to the fact that different generations of Trek characters come together during the story, but it also has a secondary meaning that comes up at a few key points in the plot. The first of these is early on, when Captain Picard receives the horrible news that his brother and eleven-year-old nephew have been tragically killed in a fire. Picard’s grief at these events is obvious and as he mourns for them – especially for his young nephew, Rene – it makes sense that he would feel a sense of loss and sorrow that these important people in his life are gone forever. However, he also mentions his sorrow that something else is gone forever due to their deaths: the Picard family line.

On a personal level, Picard feels guilty about this because he himself never had children. It makes sense that, when dealing with this loss, Picard would think about his own life, and in general, thinking about one’s own life and mortality is a huge theme in the movie. But while it’s valid to feel a sense of loss that the family line will die out now that Rene is gone, it nevertheless seems odd to me that, in the supposedly enlightened 24th century, they would still be this concerned with genealogy in this fashion. All of this comes back around for Picard later in the movie when he experiences the Nexus – a place where an individual’s thoughts and desires shape reality. In this place, he sees things including but not limited to Rene being alive, but the chief thing Picard sees is a happy family, including a wife and several children.

Image description: The imaginary family Picard sees in the Nexus in Star Trek Generations. It's also worth noting that Picard apparently really wishes he lived in the Victorian age. Image obtained from TrekCore.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of Picard’s regret over not having a family. It’s a common theme in Star Trek for characters – especially starship captains – to wonder what their lives would be if they had made different choices, wondering if they would have rather lived safe and happy lives instead of becoming space explorers. Unsurprisingly, it’s a big theme in this film, not just with Picard, but his predecessor Captain Kirk as well. I suppose the goal could be to show the sacrifices that are made for the ultimately worthy goal of exploring space and pushing the limits of what’s possible, and sometimes this can be done very poignantly. But it seems like an odd choice when so much of Star Trek shows us how the crews of various ships become family in and of themselves. In a post later this year, I plan to explore the way media frames the concept of “happily ever after” and how the notion of a “good” ending for a character is sometimes framed as them settling down romantically. I think a lot of what Picard sees in the Nexus points to this storytelling shorthand, and there are definite problems with that, as I will explore in this later post.

However, although I have some quibbles with this portrayal in Generations, I feel later Trek movies actually bring antiquated notions about these topics to a far worse place than just Picard caring about the family line. Earlier, I mentioned the notion of “asking why attractive people never got married,” which is a reference to another TNG movie, Star Trek: Insurrection. The plot follows an alien race who dwell on a planet with rejuvenating properties that keep them youthful, and the Enterprise crew must protect the planet and its people from those who would exploit them. This by itself would not be a problem – Star Trek often explores Eden-like planets, so this plot is not necessarily new. However, one such feature of the planet’s rejuvenating effect is that it makes the Enterprise crew feel more, shall we say, frisky. While this is played very mildly, it’s still a little strange to me that it’s portrayed at all. But even beyond that is Captain Picard’s romance with Anij, a woman who dwells on the planet, especially in a scene where Picard asks her, “How is it that you never married? And don’t tell me it’s just because you haven’t got around to it yet.”

Image description: Anij and Captain Picard in Star Trek: Insurrection. Image obtained from TrekCore.

Admittedly this line comes about because, given the rejuvenating element of the planet, Anij is several hundred years older than she looks; however, whether Anij is 40 or 400 years old, the notion of Picard remarking that she never got married is strange. Additionally, Anij is very obviously expressing an interest in Picard in this scene, so it could just be that he’s flirting with her and using the question to segue into his next line (about being attracted to older women), but again, it strikes me as an odd thing for a character with optimistic future values to say. Asking any character, but especially a woman, “how is it that you never married?” has a weirdly archaic feel to it, despite being delivered by Picard in this specific situation. It carries with it a sort of implication that Anij should be married and that it’s unusual that she isn’t, despite the very different way of life, and indeed lifespan, of this alien race.

Although I believe many of these plot points in both Generations and Insurrection can be chalked up to movie writing of questionable quality, I don’t know if all of it can be. Rather, I think it continues a long tradition of sci-fi media showing an unwillingness to break out of certain standard societal conventions. In the case of marriage and family, it could be worse, but it could also be better. In the case of sex, however, it can go to some extremely unfortunate places, ones that do not feel at all in keeping with a futuristic utopia.

How the Future Views Sex

In last week’s post, I briefly mentioned the short story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin, about a joyous society with a dark secret. The story’s narrator admits it would be impossible to adequately describe Omelas because everyone would imagine such a utopia differently, and says that whatever the reader believes a utopia would be like is what they should picture, specifically mentioning the concept of orgies. The point of this is to say that Omelas is not a sterile version of the future, and thus the story never confirms orgies or other sexual rituals are present; rather, the narrator says the reader should picture such a thing if it helps them imagine Omelas as not too “goody-goody.” I can do very little justice to Omelas in just a paragraph using just one small part of the story, but I wanted to point out this particular element for one very specific point: how our present-day attitudes regarding sex often create futures that are aggressively sexual. We see this happen a lot in Star Trek, and how our limited 20th and 21st century attitudes about sex manage to trickle into utopic, highly advanced, or even alien societies.

For a start, when talking about sex and sexuality in Trek, it would be remiss of me to not mention the alien race of the Vulcans and their pon farr. Pon farr is, in simplest terms, the drive for a mate, during which mature Vulcans experience a chemical imbalance in their brains. Pon farr could literally kill them, meaning they either must have some sort of medical treatment or, of course, must end the pon farr through sexual activity. I’ll likely discuss the “have sex or die” trope in more detail in a future “Tropes I Hate” sequel, but for the sake of this post, I want to focus on one Vulcan character’s pon farr in particular and why the attitudes surrounding it are baffling and incongruous with a supposedly “enlightened future”: Tuvok from Star Trek: Voyager. 

Naturally, due to Voyager’s wandering journey, Tuvok is unable to deal with his pon farr by mating with his wife. This presents quite a few problems for him, especially since he can’t get treatment for it when it occurs in the episode “Body and Soul.” One of the other male crewmembers, Tom Paris, comes to Tuvok’s aid, but unfortunately does so in some of the most cringey ways possible. To start, Vulcans are very private about their pon farr and, whether or not this attitude makes sense to humans, it’s already pretty cringey to question or disrespect that; it’s made even more so when a human crewmember like Tom decides to make jokes about it. In general, Tom is a snarky character by design, but when he makes jokes about Tuvok (his superior officer, mind you) being driven by his mating instinct or suggesting he take a cold shower, these things cross the line. You’d think such things wouldn’t be a problem in the future – or that jokes like these wouldn't still be in existence – but here we are.

Image description: Tuvok attempting to meditate his way through pon farr in Star Trek: Voyager episode "Body and Soul." Image obtained from TrekCore.

But even worse is Tom’s solution, which is to create a hologram of Tuvok’s wife so he can mate without feeling disloyal. It’s great that the concern is making sure Tuvok can still be loyal to his wife, but the way it’s played is extremely cringey on many levels. For a start, Voyager’s ship doctor is a hologram, and many of his storylines center on wanting to be seen and respected as an individual rather than treated as a lifeless piece of equipment. So for the same show to allow what is essentially a sex hologram is bizarre, especially when you consider the fact that this is not the only time it happens. When Tom tells Tuvok at one point that “it’s the holodeck, it doesn’t count,” Tuvok retorts “Is that what you tell your wife?” Tom, who used to play out B-grade sci-fi movie scenarios on the holodeck in his bachelor days, replies, “No, of course not. My days of rescuing slave girls from Planet Ten are history.”

There is a lot to unpack in this exchange, but I’d like to specifically focus on the underpinning of it all: technology. Most sci-fi – Star Trek included – shows us a future where advanced technology is an everyday occurrence. Unfortunately, because we often see the same old notions about sex and sexuality that limit culture and society today in this same media, this means futuristic pieces of tech can often be used for things of a sexual nature, as explored above. In other cases, this technology allows sci-fi stories to treat sex and sexuality like something that can be added or subtracted easily and without concern, as we see with the Vaalians in Star Trek: The Original Series episode “The Apple.”

The Vaalians are a race of asexual aromantic beings who are portrayed as only being this way because their god Vaal (actually an evil supercomputer) is keeping them in pseudo-slavery. When the crew of the Enterprise encounters them, they are forced to destroy Vaal, which does a whole host of things – not only does it mean they essentially killed the being the Vaalians believe is a god, but it strips the Vaalians of their immortality, forces them to govern themselves for the first time in their existence, oh, and of course it makes it so that they are no longer asexual and aromantic. In this case, it’s technology making them non-sexual, but it’s also the will of a more technologically advanced race that makes them sexual again, and that is a concerning pattern. The notion that technology can be used in such a manner – and that those with more mastery of it can make decisions regarding the sexuality of others – is far darker than a goofy episode like “The Apple” would have you believe.

There are plenty of other examples in Trek where technology is used to bring sexuality to something that otherwise does not or ostensibly should not have it. Two examples I’ve covered in the past are the android Data in TNG and Voyager’s holographic doctor (who is known simply as “The Doctor”), both of whom explore what it means to be human and how they relate to the world around them. These are very futuristic concepts, but when it comes to plotlines for these characters that involve sex or romance, the result is decidedly less futuristic, and instead reflects how we relate to sex and sexuality nowadays. In Data’s case, his creators programed him with the ability to have sex (a “sexuality program”), whereas The Doctor added “sexual activity” into his program himself, but in both cases, the ability to have sex is considered an important part in the development of these characters. Especially in The Doctor’s case, since the ability to have sex was self-added, he often describes the act of adding these subroutines as “overcoming the limits of his programming.” He says this about other things as well, and when he claims he has grown and evolved, it's almost always multi-faceted. But even so, much like I find Data alluding to having sex as part of his own growth to be somewhat disappointing, I find it disappointing for The Doctor as well.

It's also quite strange to me that these things can be so easily added or subtracted. For instance, in the episode “Life Line,” some of The Doctor’s attributes have to be temporarily removed so his program will fit in a data stream (I guess that file size restrictions have also followed us into the 24th century, huh?). The Doctor understandably hates this because he says these things are part of who he is. Seven of Nine, who is helping with this procedure, lists some of the superfluous attributes and these include athleticism, singing ability, playing chess, and, of course, sexual activity. I’m not sure which has worse implications - the fact that The Doctor added this to his program as part of who and what he is, or that it can just be altered at the drop of a hat.

Additionally, pay attention to the word choice. While of course a person’s sexual identity is part of who they are, that’s not what’s described here; rather, what The Doctor has added to his program is described specifically as “sexual activity” not “identity”. While this phrasing is likely because Seven is making a point of what The Doctor may need during the mission, it’s still noteworthy. Given The Doctor’s character is all about exploring what it means to be human and be respected as an individual, it carries with it a deeper implication – that the ability to have sex is what makes someone human, or that it’s a necessary component in being treated with respect. Again, I don’t think these things were intentional on the part of this episode’s writers, but I do think it potentially points to that underlying attitude. The Doctor even calls these things “enhancements,” and describes them as things that set him apart from the other Emergency Medical Hologram models, which again carries an odd sort of subtext.

Image description: The Doctor boasting to a newer (younger) Emergency Medical Hologram about the experiences he's had and overcoming the limits of his program, including the fact that he's had sex, in the episode "Message in a Bottle." Image obtained from TrekCore.

Something I explore endlessly on this blog is the way media of all kinds frames sex as a supposedly essential component of being human – in order to be seen and treated as an adult, in order to have “normal” relationships, and in order to function in a highly sexualized society. The notion of treating sex and/or romance as the highest priority in your life, even when you say you don’t want to, is also something we see in supposedly utopic futures, even though that sounds to me like a dystopia. Think, for instance, of the many times people seem to push Voyager’s Seven of Nine into relationships, or how she’s treated when she doesn’t have one. Even in societies that aren’t utopic – like the gritty war-torn world of 2003’s Battlestar Galactica – we still see how sexualized things are, from sexy robots to typical attitudes about sexuality. In many cases, these things are so much less about how the future should be and so much more about how people in the present assume the future will be.

How the Present Views the Future

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned the EPCOT attraction “Horizons” (see video below) and its vision of the future, wondering how technology would shape “twenty-first century living.” The attraction acknowledged the way people in the past envisioned the future, looking at everything from how Jules Verne pictured space travel to the “future from the fifties,” and how these things were somewhat misguided or lacking in their scope. This is nothing new, and indeed mispredictions about the future almost feel like an essential part of speculative fiction, whether serious or silly. 

Think, for instance, of the classic animated sci-fi show The Jetsons. Created in the 1960’s, the show was a comedic vision of the future very much still firmly in the spirit of that era – flying cars existed, but traffic jams were now just in the sky instead of on the ground; women still did housework, but it involved pushing a lot of buttons instead; the future is easier, brighter, and expectedly space age-y, but people still have very sixties-esque problems. Again, because this is a comedic version of the future, this is very much the point; audiences were supposed to be watching a show about a recognizable family living in a space age world. And indeed, good sci-fi and fantasy should be able to make commentaries on things in their time period through the lens of a fantastical future or different world. However, I can’t help but feel like too many works of the future do what The Jetsons did and just shove their era’s notions into a future world, only not to nearly as comedic an effect.

Star Trek is a great example of this, due in large part because the characters of this universe often make it clear how much they have supposedly progressed past the limitations of the 20th and 21st centuries. While this is inspiring and true in many ways, it’s also not true in all ways, as my many Trek related posts often prove. I have no doubt in my mind that people will still have sex and be concerned with sexuality in the 24th century; I don’t believe these are things we have to “evolve out of,” nor do I think we ever will. What I do hope happens in the next several hundred years, though, is not just the advent of space travel and strange new worlds, but the ability to recognize that sex, romance, and “normal” metrics of life like marriage and children are not the norm for everyone.

When sci-fi media includes tropes about sex and/or romance, I suspect it’s because the writers have never had these notions challenged, or they assume these things are so inherent to life itself that no one – whether human or alien – will ever be apart from them. Additionally, when trying to make sci-fi and related genres “accessible,” I believe it’s easy to give audiences of any generation the usual metrics they’re trained to look for in a story - romances, sexual relationships, and family stories among them. Even if these relationships change or get more diverse over time, I suspect it’s still believed that most audiences will relate to these types of characters more than ones who are non-sexual and/or non-romantic. But if sci-fi can teach us to identify with robots, androids, holograms, and aliens, I think it could easily teach audiences to relate to and care about aspec people as well. The future doesn’t have to be a copy of the tropes we have in the here and now, and the present doesn’t have to view the future through this cynical lens. This is the future, after all. I think we can build a different telescope or look through a new viewscreen.

As an aspec fan of science fiction, there are many questions I ask myself. Can there be asexual alien races that, unlike the Vaalians, get to stay asexual? Can there be characters – human, alien, and in between – who get to explore what it’s like to never be in sexual or romantic relationships? Can there be more non-traditional relationships between characters, such as purely platonic life partners? As sci-fi writer Jane Espenson once said, “You don’t create new worlds to give them all the same limits of the old ones.” True to these words, I hope sci-fi writers ask themselves new questions alongside the usual “what if’s?” that make so much of the genre spectacular.

There is so much in sci-fi media to love, and so much about futuristic worlds to be excited about – whether that’s technology making the world better, humanity meeting and befriending new species, or a world where many societal wrongs have been righted. But in a world where we can explore the stars and push the limits of human knowledge, we don’t have to repeat the limits of our thinking here in this world. We can cast aside the tropes, the amatonormativity, and the assumptions we make about non-sexual and non-romantic people and can find stories as numerous as stars if we try. By examining these preconceived notions, I sincerely hope we can start redefining our ideas about the future and create futuristic worlds where people like me won’t feel quite so alone in the universe.