Hi! After reading opinions for a long time, I’ve realized that some episodes are quite controversial nowadays. For example, Star Trek: Voyager Season 4, Episode 17, “Retrospect,” has been compared to the #MeToo movement, with some people criticizing how it “handles rape culture unevenly” (as one IMDb review puts it).
This got me thinking: What other things do you feel Star Trek make wrong?
Neither humanity nor the Federation are run by a military government. I’m not even sure what gave you that impression. The federation, as its name suggests, is a federal system like the US, or the EU. Each planet retains its political structure while participating in the federation. Earth is the exception where it’s essentially the DC of the federation and is run directly by the federation council. Earth is also unique in being communistic rather than having a currency based economy like most other planets and the federation itself. Starfleet is a human organization that predates the creation of the federation and at that time was absorbed as its military arm. The president of the federation is the commander in chief of Starfleet. There is even a two parter in DS9 where an admiral tries to overthrow the president and fails and it is referred to as a “military coup”.
While I agree with you that it’s almost certainly not the intent, we unfortunately have seen that a shocking number of uniformed Starfleet officers sit on the Federation Council.
That was a review board for disciplinary action within Starfleet. The federation council members were there because it was an intragalactic incident.
If Starfleet disciplinary hearings are directly conducted by the UFP president, that raises even more questions, and certainly doesn’t dispel the notion of a “military government”…