When you stop to think about it, it is quite an amazing thing that Star Trek has, as a business enterprise, managed to live and prosper as long as it has. Okay, forgive that first sentence and hear me out. . . .

From a failed moralistic television show rooted in and making not overly hidden commentary on American culture of the 1960s has sprung 10 movies, a cartoon, and four follow on television series. People host Star Trek weddings, dress as Star Fleet officers, and go so far as to remodel their apartments to complete Star Trek settings. Some have said that there is something compelling in the vision of hope for the future of mankind that Star Trek embodies. But I have to wonder if they've been watching the same Star Trek that I've been watching all my life.

Let's go back to the beginnnig. No doubt you're thinking Captain James T. Kirk. Well, I'm not. I'm thinking Captain Christopher Pike. This is, after all, the original vision that Rodenberry had for Star Trek. One thing that Star Trek has done is incorporate every bit of its film history into its actual history. The Cage, the original pilot (which was rejected), was worked into a two part episode and made into official Star Trek history. In the course of this particular story Captain Pike is made to relive certain of his experiences, and one of them is of watching an Orion slave girl dance. It is very clear that the Captain finds her alluring. But stop and think about what is going on here. A captain whose culture values freedom and has eliminated want and need finds stimulation in watching a slave being forced to perform in an blatantly sexual manner. Keep in mind that by the words of the show (Episode: Bread and Circuses) that Star Fleet officers have to undergo psychological testing to see if they are fit for command. Apparently finding slaves sexually stimulating isn't disqualifying. And we're not talking about psychological testing that is practiced today. No, we're talking the 23rd century where psychology is so advanced that only a handful of individuals remain who aren't treatable for psychological problems (Episode: Whom Gods Destroy). The plain and simple is that the Federation simply doesn't care about what depravities exist in the minds of its officers so long as they get the job done.

Turning for a bit to the matter of advanced psychology, stop and think about what it means to be so advanced that you can bring almost everyone into the realm of normalcy. What is normal? Who decides? Has it not always been the hallmark of dictatorships to be focused on controlling what is appropriate thought and what isn't? But the Federation isn't a dictatorship. . .is it? Let me ask, does a free and caring society take its dangerously insane individuals and remove them to a planet with a toxic atmosphere as was done in Whom Gods Destory? What purpose could that serve? To insure that if they escape and aren't found that they die? That doesn't strike me as particularly humanitarian. No, the conditions befit a prison. A place you lock away those that are dangerous to the social order. Another interesting bit from that episde is the use of a device previously seen in the episode Dagger of the Mind--the neuroneutralizer, also commonly referred to as "the Chair". The Chair was shown to be powerful enough to create desires, sensations, and even memories that were believed to be wholly real. Where was the Chair first developed and put to use? The penal colony at Tantalus. Waitaminute. . .penal facilities are run by the government, and the government in this case is the Federation. So what we have is a prison run by the state where they are developing methods of mind control. The ethics of locking the criminally insane away where they might die if they get loose is troubling but perhaps execusable as an unintended oversight, but using experimental mind control devices on prisoners is beyond excuse.

But mind control explains so very much. Stop and consider that the great technological boom of the 20th century resulted increasingly from bringing together disparate ideas and advances to create something new and more powerful than anything that had gone before. What might you do in the 23rd century with already existing technology? Say the transporter and the Chair? After all, in transit you're just a stream of data. We already know the data stream can be manipulated to make weapons inoperative. Dr. Crusher uses the transporter to perform surgery. Why shouldn't it be able to induce the changes to the brain that the Chair does? Bones always complained about the Transporter. Perhaps in suspecting it left one soulless he was scratching at the hidden truth that it removed ones soul by removing ones freedom of thought. A trip through the transporter and a person could be reprogrammed to think whatever was desired for them to think. And those people otherwise immune to standard techniques? Declare them criminally insane and lock them away.

As monstrous as this sounds, it is backed by looking at what clearly were earlier forays into mind control by the Federation. Consider the Sigma Iotians from A Piece of the Action. Even for a highly imitative people, does it make sense that one book left behind by an Earth ship would result in 90 years of the entire planet deciding to adopt planet wide, down to the kids in the street, the social form of gangster Chicago circa 1930? Or course not. The notion is preposterous. But if you were testing methods of mind control on a mass scale, what better thing to do than to come up with a ridiculous notion and see how well you could implement it on a planetary population. Why was Kirk and crew even at the planet in the first place? They were directed there by the Federation to see what impact the arrival of the SS Horizon, an Earth ship that had visited 90s years before and before the non-interference directive, had on the natives of the planet. Supposedly the Federation had only gotten word of the visit due to the Horizon, subsequently lost, having used conventional radio to send its report in a time before sub-space communication. A convenient story to give to Kirk and crew, who wouldn't be able to tell if a Federation ship equipped to bombard the populace from space with neuro-neutralizers had simply come through a few weeks before, leaving commands for the population to adopt a gangster lifestyle.

Not convinced of the hypothesis? Then consider that a Federation researcher did precisely the same thing on the planet Ekos (episode Patterns of Force), only instead of gangland Chicago he created Nazi world. True, Kirk and crew intervene to stop a massacre, but that only serves Federation interests in the long term. Nuclear wastelands aren't known for providing raw resources. And note that this time as with the other a benign culture was not imposed but rather one full of hatred and dictatorial forms.

Indeed that isn't the last time Kirk and company come across a planet whose pattern is modelled on Earth's past. Miri, and Bread and Circuses, the Omega Glory. Parallel evolution may create aliens who look like us and can even interbreed with us (though it has been explained in ST:TNG that all humanoids in this region of space share common genetic ancestry from a single progenitor race that spread its genetic code among the stars), but common cultures? Completely unbelievable is what that is. But mind control explains it all.

So ahead of Kirk and crew must have run an earlier waves of Federation ships, kept out of the official histories, blazing a path and making the path safe for those who followed.

And if Federation history is shown to be untruthful in some respects, how much of it can be believed? Not very much it seems. Consider what is revealed during Kirk and crews encounter with the planet Excalbia. While scanning the surface of a molten planet the Enterpise is scanned from the surface and mysteriously not only does an apparently hospitable zone for humans form but a signal is recieved from the planet by something that presents itself as Abraham Lincoln. Intrigued, after beaming the figure aboard and being assured by it that it believes itself to be Lincoln and that it is important for Kirk and Spck to go down to the planet with him, it is revealed that the natives of the planet have scanned the Enterprise and not understanding the concepts of good and evil they discovered in the databases of the Enterprise, have decided to create replicas of the individuals found in the databases and have them fight out the matter to see which is the superior philosophy. Presented on the side of evil is Khaless, ". . .who set the patterns for the tyrannies of his homeworld." The name Khaless should be familiar to anyone watching ST:TNG--its the same progenitor of the Klingon people that Worf holds in such high regard. Well was he a tyrant as Kirk and crew would have it or a man of great and unquestionable honor? To my knowledge even though Russia is now nomially an ally we haven't decided to embrace Lenin as a kindly figure. It is hard to imagine that even in alliance with the Klingons that a democratic and free Federation would embrace a tyrant as anything other than a tyrant. But when people are controlled from behind the scenes you can tell the people what to think. So Khaless may not have been the tyrant presented. Why then portray him as one in your databases (which presumably you aren't expecting aliens to rifle through)? It is the hallmark of dictatorships to discredit and reform historical figures from time to time as suits the current political agenda. When the Federation was hostile to the Klingons the official thinking is that the Klingon founders are bad guys. With Klingons as allies their founders must be good guys. And the people believe it because they have no choice, being programmed whenever they take a trip on a trasporter.

But simple mind manipulation isn't the end of the matter. Consider, what is the one forbidden technology? Genetic manipulation. Perhaps it make sense, given the Eugenics War, that humans would be shy about such matters. But Romulans? Klingons? Any of the other member worlds of the Federation even? No reason a priori for them to shun genetic manipulation. So why the injuncton against it? To keep firm control over the secret practice of it. Technology once created can not be uncreated. The atomic genie once free didn't go back into its bottle, so what hope is there of undoing genetic engineering? None. But you can control it. And here is a likely explanation of where things go wrong in the Star Trek universe. Who profits from making genetic supermen? Those that control them. The Eugenics War may have been sold to the population as representing the inherent folly of trying to create superior men and women, but in truth those creating such would be inferior to their own creations. . .unless they engineered in flaws by which to keep control of them. What flaws? Physical flaws would defeat the purpose. But psychological flaws. . .flaws that would keep the supermen from working together well would be in the interest of their masters. And the best flaw for keeping a group from working together would be the flaw of arrogance. Clearly things didn't go as planned and the supermen in their arrogance got out of control and at great cost were defeated. But the invention of the transporter after the Eugenics War changed the problem. You don't need a force of super soldiers to keep the population in check when you can modify the population itself. And if you're doing such a thing you don't want anyone ruining your work by introducing unplanned changes, so you outlaw genetic engineering. Simple. But that doesn't keep the secret masters of the Federation from engaging in such. Consider that in ST: DSN we have not only Dr. Bashir as being illegally genetically engineered (episode Doctor Bashir, I Presume?)--showing the technology can't be repressed--but otherwise well-adjusted but the three "mutants" (episodes Statistical Probabilities and Chrysalis) who have each been engineered to be geniuses but all have tragic psychological flaws. The Federation didn't know what Bashir's parents had done so he didn't have any flaws instilled. But the "mutants"? Brilliant and flawed as a means of control. And when Section 31 does come calling, who do they come to? Its no coincidence they want Bashir, as they don't want an uncontrolled superman wandering about.

Are there any other signs of the Federation being willing to experiment on its own people beyond mind control and genetic manipulation? Well consider the logical end of both and you end up with. . .that's right, the Borg. No doubt an experiment that got out of control, broke lose, and came home with a vengence. Keep in mind that with all of the Federation to rampage through, when they show up the first planet they run to take over is Earth. Why should that be? Because they know that is where their creators are, and those creators are their greatest threat.

But what about Q and his hand in the Federation encountering the Borg? Let me make my case and I'll explain exactly who Q is later.

The Borg were probably an experiment at total population subjugation combined with acquiring technology to ensure survival of the species that got loose. The transwarp conduits they use? Well, didn't the Federation fiddle with transwarp back at the end of Kirk's days? If you were building the next great thing, wouldn't you use your best technology? And the acquisition of technology angle. . .isn't that what the Federation has been doing from day one?

One of the most terrifying aspects of considering an evil Federation is just how much technology it has amassed. Perhaps the people of Scalos (episod Wink of An Eye) were unlucky in their water being infected by a strange element that accelerated them so fast that they were invisible to the naked eye along with making their men sterile. But the Federation has a weapon that allows its troops to casually decimate enemies. Not only that, but the Federation can deaccelerate the troops as needed. Its pretty amazing that so little goes wrong for the Federation until you consider the possibility of a secret police that literally can be everywhere at once spying on everyone. Another weapons grade discovery was of a drug that grants telepathic powers (Plato's Stepchildren). And yet by ST:TNG nobody mentions or even knows these things exist. Why not? Because Star Fleet is the public face of the masters. The really hush, hush work is handled (at least by the 24th century) by Section 31 (ST: DSN). So the Federation has been accumulating technology, and one piece in particular serves as the underpinning that ensures the success in the end of the Federation. . .the Guardian At the Edge of Forever.

Consider that the Federation has a working time machine that doesn't require doing weird and risky close flights around stars at warp speed. The Guardian can take you anywhere at any point in time. We already know the Federation exists in the 26th and 29th century and by that point have temporal ships that police the Federation's timeline. Where did this method of total control come from? No doubt extensions of what was learned studying the Guardian. But how then can the Federation ever be in any danger? It isn't really. Success is guaranteed. The secret masters rule now, tomorrow, and forevermore.

But can't some godbeing like Q come along and ruin things? Perhaps if Q weren't the penultimate end of things. Q is nothing more than a jaded member of the ruling elite from the far end of time. His actions while whimsical to himself are not a threat because it'd be suicidal for him to do anything to harm humanity--and he knows it. (Not to mention the other members of the Q continuum are part and parcel of him and so know what he is doing at any point.) His powers represent the gross end of accumulatinig technology and using genetic engineering to produce perfection. Indeed, in the end the secret masters have created a utopia of godlike existence for themselves and everything else is just waiting to get to the point where it can all be put together.