this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2026
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enterprise had a gender episode too, but with a 3rd sex, genderless in a complicated reproductive species(vissians).
When did it become woke? The Cage. When there was a competent women wearing pants, as 2nd in command and not used as a damsel where Pike occasionally slapped her ass and called her toots.
Not to mention a black woman as communications officer on the bridge. All this happens within the first few … seconds of the pilot?
Not to mention a black woman as communications officer on the bridge.
Uhura doesn't show up until The Corbomite Maneuver in this shot:
So obviously it became woke in the 3rd episode of The Original Series. /s
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Roddenberry always wanted it to be moral plays disguised with prosthetics and effects. It's been woke since conception.
You forgot even having a black woman as a main character. Even if she was essentially just a space secretary.
where Pike occasionally slapped her ass and called her toots.
Omg imagine if it was tho
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anyone who whines about "woke" is automatically a bad person in my eyes. at least usage of the word is good way for them to out themselves.
It's always painful when "normal" people in my life complain about thay shit. Like my sister, she very nice and all and kind of "traditional" in a way, hard to explain. Holy shit, tye stuff that annoys her nor no reason. Sometimes i hear her on the phone going: ugh, yes, it has to be politically correct. Same with that gender stuff, right? I always think like wtf, you have two kids, you don't go out anymore, you live in a small town and you talk to like 10 people, why in the world does things like that bother you? Luke she even knows transgender guys, she went to school with a non binary person in the late 90, where no one even knew what the fuck is going on. She has two gay friends and a gay uncle and she likes all of these guys, but still rolls her eyes when a gay person is in a movie or they gender swap swap someone. SHE DOESN'T EVEN WATCH MOVIES. she doesn not care at all. I really don't know what it is, but i know a few people like that who have weird priorities in their lifes or what they decide to make a problem.
i wonder if its severe lack of metacognition. They have heard some awful things from somewhere, maybe some hateful news channel or some person who seems okay to them but also spouts hate occasionally. And then they internalize it without even knowing what is happening because they can't question their own thoughts. Metacognition seems to be kind of like immune system for the mind, at least that is how I see it.
Its quite ironic how some rave against "woke" when they themselves are essentially asleep. At least personally i consider woke to mean that you are actually aware of stuff. Maybe that is the reason the truely wicked people went so hard on demonizing the whole thing. They could lose everything if enough people "woke up". Even more ironic how they also talk about stuff like "mind viruses", when they essentially are about as well in the head as plague zombie is physically. But then again, every accusation from certain kind of people is a confession. The source where all that shit stems from is likely very aware how much their methods resemble how virus works.
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Trek was conceived woke. If anything it's moved away from that with its overuse of Section 31 and the mirror universe. And now there's a war college.
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I think it's very easy to claim 'woke' with modern star trek, but I think the issue is that politics used to be more tightly wound into the plot in that they used to express leftist viewpoints in a natural way that served the plot. The episodes were well thought out and were rich with allegory and metaphors.
Now the political views have remained largely the same from before, but the writing has suffered to an extent that things feel forced and no longer serve the plot in a natural way. It's less thought provoking, and more "here's the moral of the story". Which for better or worse only really underscores Star Trek's leftist views.
Bullshit. Modern star trek is fine I guess, but like, wasn't the captain in 'discovery' ever so slightly faschy? There's the ship that runs on doing mushrooms and an openly gay character. That's like it. It's not even the wokest star trek, what with the other one having the trans wormgirl and the sheriff who turns into a cloud for fun and the space-palestinian security officer and all the explicit antifascism while the semi-defecting fascist spy flirts with Dr. twink under the watchful eye of black space-jesus(n'awlins edition).
Compare it to actual woke fiction from the decade previous, three mediums:
Sense8(TV): the main character is just a trans woman, everything is a metaphor for 'drugs are great, fuck the state', and everything is queer. There's a 'detransition is murder' arc. There's a hive-mind-body-swapping orgy. Several, I think. Magical prison support is a major theme. Also prison breaks. Cops in your affinity group fucks everything up.
Pillars of eternity(video game): the druid is straight up an indigenous bisexual furry. If you're too racist, he will seduce your wife, turn into a wolf, seduce your dog, and then steal your cart with all your beer on it on his way out. the paladin is transmasc-not-trans misotheist secret agent of kinda-revolutionary-kinda-dugallist france. he wizard is literally two spirit and a gay uptight British schoolboy/ancient appalachian party girl. The Americans worship the goddess of fire and conflict above all others and literally did the high fantasy Manhattan project to murder the god of forgiveness rebirth and being nice to each other when he popped into a dirt farmer and declared communism-jihad in canadappalachia. Everything is so Hegelian it hurts. There's a joke ancap paladin subclass. The main plot is about the brutal violence of manifest destiny and its echoes through history, a stillbirth epidemic, and Americans all being howling fascists led by a shadow government of CIA telepaths. Doctor/scientists actually trying to solve the problem, who might even have a shot, are regularly lynched basically for being nerds.
I won't even start on recent books, partially because I don't look at publication dates for those, and partially because nobody else has ever read one. But let's just say the nearest non-star-trek-branded equivalent to 'star trek' in literature (not a consideration in other media, went for 'within a decade) is the 'culture' series, which is falGsc(explicitly anarchist) where literally everyone is trans and drugs are a thing you get from your drug glands that grow in during puberty. Authority always turns out badly.
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Honestly I think the difference perceived by the "too woke" brigade is that a lot of the older storylines featured what felt like exceptions to the norm. Smaller instances of people being accepting. An example might be a trans person existing was a whole storyline usually with a gimmick rather than just a given that was treated as the norm that requires no explanation. Individuals being chill very rarely is their problem. It's when someone tries to get them to change their ways and accept something as "normal" that they go bonkers
But yeah... Woke is such a non term referring to any cultural advancement of acceptance at scale that of course Star Trek was always "woke" it was culturally transformative and minority aware from the beginning
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My biggest problem with NuTrek is that it's too dark. Not in a "thematic" sense but in "projected photons" sense. I feel like I'm straining my eyes to see what's happening on the the set.
It's one of the reasons I loved Lower Decks so much. I could see what was happening.
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1966 is the answer
That's not woke. That's science fiction.
I mean if humans could just change gender/sex/appearance as efficiently as Data's child, there'd be no problem. You'd just do a beep-beeb-boop and that's it.
As for nutrek, their problem is not woke. Their problem is stupid.
May I introduce you to the concept of allegory.
Their problem is stupid.
Oh, there's stupid in abundance in old Trek too.
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The difference now isn't a matter of woke vs not woke. The stories have become way more interpersonal drama rather than the older sci-fi focused story telling style, and that just happens to make it seem like there are more woke issues being featured.
At least that's my take on it.
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