Updated: September 11, 2025

"Star Trek was an attempt to say that Humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms."

"We believed that the often ridiculed mass audience is sick of this world's petty nationalism and all its old ways and old hatreds... and that people are not only willing but anxious to think beyond those petty beliefs that have for so long have kept mankind divided."

Gene Roddenberry:

The stories in Star Trek mostly revolve around the experiences and adventures of the Humans and aliens who serve under Starfleet Command, the space-borne peacekeeping, exploratory, and humanitarian armada of the United Federation of Planets.

Many of the conflicts and political dimensions of Star Trek are allegories of contemporary cultural realities. Star Trek: The Original Series addressed social-political issues of the 1960s, just as later spin-offs have confronted issues of their respective decades. Issues depicted in the various series include war and peace, personal loyalty, authoritarianism, imperialism, economics, racism, religion, Human rights, sexism, and the role of technology.

Roddenberry intended the show to have a progressive political agenda reflective of the emerging counter-culture and the civil rights movement of the 1960s, though he was not fully forthcoming to the networks about this. He wanted Star Trek to show a future of what Humanity might evolve to become, if it would learn from the lessons of the past, most specifically by ending violence. An extreme example is the alien race known as the Vulcans, who suffered a violent history but learned to finally achieve peace by suppressing their emotions and by adopting the guiding principles of logic. Roddenberry also placed great emphasis on an anti-war message in Star Trek, depicting the United Federation of Planets, a vast interstellar alliance founded on the enlightened principles of liberty, equality, justice, progress, and peaceful co-existence, as an idealistic version of the United Nations. His efforts were opposed by the network because of concerns over marketability, as they opposed Roddenberry's insistence that the USS Enterprise have a racially diverse crew.