Star Trek: Horrors of War

By Kameron Hurley, author of The Stars Are Legion

There's no better time for Star Trek to do what it does best—engaging in tough moral dilemmas. The episode I'm most interested in seeing Star Trek explore is one that addresses the scourge of perpetual war, and how to de-escalate it and come out the other side.

The Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armageddon" envisioned a 500-year-long war that continued to persist because the horror and brutality of that war were hidden from the people who fought it. It's the horror of war, Kirk says, that forces us to end it. As long as we are able to put people to death neatly, cleanly, behind closed doors, away from the eyes of the media, of witnesses, war will continue without end.

As America soon enters its second decade of ongoing war in the Middle East, it's worth asking this question again via the safe space-western format that allows us to divorce our political baggage from the moral question, and interrogate ourselves and our actions in a way that doesn't feel like an attack.

I want a Star Trek that makes me engage with my own world in new ways, and challenges me to solve problems using the skills that made the series great: knowing and understanding your enemy, finding common ground, and being open to new experiences, to not just boldly go where no one has gone, but to not be a dick about it when you get there.

I want see an episode that tells us not only how to surface the horrors of war to drive action, but to create the egalitarian future Star Trek has always promised us.