Star Trek Needs To Leave The Federation Behind

The advantage of the anthology approach is that Star Trek doesn’t have to go “all-in” and create, say, an entire Klingon show. Instead, each episode can feature different alien cultures and characters. With this approach, there would be a little something for every fan, and if done right, each episode would feel fresh and original.

What kinds of episodes would we like to see from a Star Trek anthology show that finally ditches the constant Federation bias? For one thing, it would be fun to see what was happening aboard that Vulcan ship whose crew eventually makes First Contact with Zephram Cochran. Vulcans love to play it cool, but we’d love to see their immediate reaction to a backwater planet like Earth suddenly demonstrating they are ready to travel the stars.

We’d also love to see this Star Trek show devote an episode to the behind-the-scenes politics that led to the outbreak of the Klingon Civil War. Imagine an episode in the Game of Thrones style as we see all the backstabbing and manipulation involving High Council Members. Given how much the two races have historically hated each other, we’d really love to see what it was like for the traitorous Klingons and Romulans to reluctantly work together.

Speaking of the Romulans, we’d love an episode about the early war with Earth; what was it like to wage a violent battle against humans who never even saw what their attackers looked like? After that wacky first season of Star Trek: Picard, we’d love an episode exploring more of the secretive Zhat Vash organization and its origins. What was it like for them to get those Mass Effect-esque visions from an alien artifact, and how did a centuries-old organization dedicated to the extinction of synthetic life react to the development of Data and other androids?

As you can tell, the possibilities for an alien-centric Star Trek anthology are endless, and we’d be just as excited for episodes featuring Ferenginar’s reaction to Grand Nagus Rom’s progressive changes as we would for Cardassian episodes showing reactions to various Dominion War victories and setbacks. Such a show would be a “win/win” for the franchise because it could build on fans’ nostalgia for earlier shows while simultaneously giving us a series that feels fresh and innovative. Plus, Paramount could shamelessly use fan reactions to certain episodes and characters to gauge what audiences want from future shows and movies.

Somewhat ironically, Star Trek has recently been suffering from the same problem Star Wars suffers from: despite a huge galaxy of possibilities, we just keep following the same small handful of characters and groups. But just as Star Wars discovered via The Mandalorian that it could tell awesome stories outside of its core mythology, it’s time for Star Trek to discover it can tell awesome tales without the Federation. To borrow a phrase from our favorite pointy-eared character, to do anything else would be illogical.