I walk the grey dust where their footprints remain,
Pressed into silence, preserved without rain.
The shadows lie long in this airless light,
Yet something familiar steadies me tonight.
Apollo came first with a single nation’s pride,
A Roman name carried on a Cold War tide.
Its courage was real, but its vision was small,
A triumph for some, not a future for all.
Artemis rises with a broader aim,
Not conquest, not rivalry, not glory or fame.
A mission shaped by many voices and views,
A future imagined by all we include.
And we follow the dreamers who gazed from below,
Who saw in that lantern a place we might go.
They pictured its valleys, imagined its plains,
Gave substance to longing that language constrains.
From poets who whispered of journeys untold,
To thinkers who mapped it in silver and gold,
To children who pointed and claimed it as ours,
Their visions still rise with the dust of these hours.
We walk in the footsteps of those who first dreamed flight,
From watchers of tides to keepers of ancient night.
From minds who traced how the planets would roam,
To builders of engines that carried us from home.
The ones who saw futures in fire and flight,
Their courage and craft shape our path through this light.
Their questions became the foundations we use,
A legacy guiding the journey we choose.
The Earth hangs distant, a fragile sphere,
A reminder of everything we hold dear.
Borders vanish when seen from this place,
Revealing one planet, one human race.
We walk by knowledge that time cannot sever,
By lessons learned from Apollo’s endeavour.
Their boldness lit the path we now choose,
A path where no one is asked to lose.
This dust recalls the stories we share,
From Africa’s first watchers of the night air,
Reading the heavens in patterns of fire and stone,
Long before empires claimed the sky as their own.
Here too, we adapt, we endure, we belong,
Sometimes in silence, sometimes in song.
A chorus of humans beneath a stark sun,
Continuing a journey the first steps begun.
Let shadows drift freely across the old regolith;
Earthlight will guide us far better than myth.
Its glow is a promise no darkness can shun:
That we shape our tomorrow by standing as one.
Author’s Note: this poem is companion to A Distant Sun.
‘Star Trek’ was an attempt to say 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 lifeforms.”
– Gene Roddenberry
When Star Trek VI came out in 1991, its background story echoed the contemporaneous collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of Glasnost. Fans and critics alike praised the movie for its courage to be edgy and unafraid to explore contemporary social issues. A generation later, a small faction of fan critics for the newest Star Trek series (Starfleet Academy) complain about its wokeness, and they demonstrate a fear of the social evolution and change to which it appears to allude.
What I want to explore here is this attitudinal change as an example of populist cultural collapse that is currently underway in the United States of America and some other parts of the western world.
Star Trek – Back to School
I will be honest: for all the obvious reasons, I have not yet seen the three episodes of Starfleet Academy that have been shown publicly. I am unable to comment on the show itself, nor provide a valid critique. I do believe that much of Star Trek since the reboot films (2009 – 2016) has been somewhat deficient because it often comes across as poor science and poor fiction – just generally sub-par writing (I am glad to say that many Star Trek fans disagree with me – and each other – and have energetic debates about this material). In all fairness, I will withhold airing my personal opinion of the new Starfleet Academy series until after I actually get to watch it.
The problem is that some fans appear to reject the new material outright – not primarily because of anything related to the perceived quality of the writing, but because these fans appear unwilling or unable to cope with new characterisations of sexuality, gender or gender identity, race and social evolution. I saw the same thing happen in 2017, when Doctor Who was recast as a woman; then again when a queer Rwandan-Scottish actor played the part. Many fans went hysterical. Straight white men proclaimed that they were suddenly being victimised and excluded; as though their previous fifty years of privilege had mysteriously disappeared. Similarly, when Star Trek Discovery first appeared on television that same year (2017), some fans bewailed the appearance of strong, non-white women; and a mixed-race gay male couple. Once again these armchair warriors wailed, “Why are straight white men being excluded”? Overall, they came across as a bunch of Sad Puppies.
Most recently, the idea of a new Star Trek series featuring a young cast in Starfleet Academy – possibly analogous to young people entering college (university) and for the first time leaving home, becoming independent adults, exploring their new surroundings and friendships and a mix of strange, new cultures – seems inspiring and fresh and potentially exciting. They live in a world 1000 years from now, where alien cultures (formerly enemies) have evidently reconciled and interbred; where new societal norms have swept aside old prejudices and bigotries. What could possibly go wrong?
“Star Trek” has always touted its desire to explore strange new worlds; what “Starfleet Academy” supposes is, what if college is the strangest world of all?”
– Clint Worthington
Recontextualising material to suit the romance literature market or the youth/teen market is not necessarily problematic. How many people complained back in the 12th century, when Arthurian stories were rebooted as medieval romance literature, changing Camelot forever from Dark Age “fall of the Roman Empire” mythology to romantic medieval chivalric code? How many Shakespeare fans have ever complained that the Bard himself rewrote earlier story versions of Romeo and Juliet, plagiarising it as fan fiction and adding extra depth of teen romance angst? Star Trek itself was rescued from being a failed television series in the late 1960s, recast as a multi-billion dollar franchise, in no small part because predominantly female fans (many of them being teens or post-teens) rewrote the material into thousands of fan fiction stories featuring “slash” material (same sex romance between Kirk and Spock).
Literature evolves to fit changing cultural norms and consumer demand. Star Trek will undoubtedly remain a science fiction franchise, but its stories must continue to follow the code of social evolution: adapt or die. In fitting with its long-time policy of incorporating “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations”, it will continue to fulfil the vision of creator Gene Roddenberry that diversity should not just be tolerated – it should be celebrated. Bring on Starfleet Academy, youth culture and all.
Accordingly, I heartily recommend you seek out mainstream reviews of the series – most of which are balanced, rational, fair, and celebratory of diversity.
There are also reviews on social media, some of them extremely critical, such as this one, who complains at 17:30 that men apparently aren’t getting a fair representation (really, after nearly 60 years of male-dominated franchise?); and this one (who tries to rationally debate the criticisms of others about “wokeness”); and this one (who also complains about male representation) – perhaps no surprise that all of these reviews are created by men. But they do make an effort to analyse the material critically and fairly, and their comments align with fan comments I have heard about the soap opera nature of this program: a Dawson’s Creek or CW in space, with a ship that should be labelled NCC-90210.
I do not have a problem with fan reviews that express dislike of obsessive youth culture or other story elements – please wait until I see the material for myself and we can have a wonderful debate about the undoubted strengths and weaknesses of the script material – but my problem is with those fan critics who barely touch upon literary criticism and instead bewail the wrongs (real or imagined) inflicted upon them by woke warriors.
Stories can be freely criticised as being weak or garbage – but characters, and the existence of the minority groups they represent, should not.
Gay Klingons And Other Catastrophes To Befall Humanity
One British fan critic begins his review, “Window Lickers in Spaaaaaaaace!! ” with an attempt to analyse what he sees as the shortcomings of the material, although his references to the show as a “bowel movement” (0:03) and “science retardation” (4:03) suggest that his analysis is an emotional as much as a literary response. He continues to refer to “retards” (eg. 18:20) even makes a vague reference that appears to invoke (or it is to satirise?) Trump racism: “Immigrants going to Earth to steal. Wait, is this 2020?” (5:04). He adds a dismissively homophobic comment about characters: “Also, they’re gay. Probably… it’s Kurtsman Trek.” (11: 20).
He later discusses a scene in which a young black man defeats some armed guards (a trope in media science fiction since forever) but suggests that it is an example of inverse racism because the guards are all white (13:02). He even makes a comment mocking gender equality:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I bring to you the flaw in that logic that will stay here until the day everybody dies: Heavy lifting. Where’s the women? Oh, it’s the men. It’s the men doing the heavy lifting. The sexes are equal right up to heavy lifting.” (47:44)
He continues this vein in another review, within which he mocks female body image as portrayed by the show’s “robust women” (3:58 and 8:34), and summarises his criticism of the new series – not with literary analysis of its perceived script weaknesses, but with the following complaint:
“As expected, it has got nothing to do with Star Trek. It is just another far-left ideological spurge that takes a brand, a franchise name, and just puts its own messaging and inclusion and diversity into it.”(0:14)
The Vulcan “IDIC” symbol from Star Trek, representing Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.
He chooses to forget that Star Trek has always aspired towards (but did not always achieve) inclusion, and the promotion of, “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations”. Instead, this critic denies any historic wokeness in the franchise, dismissing such claims as, “absolute, utter bullshit” (7:17). His perspective can be further seen in his tendency to dismiss those with whom he disagrees as simply having Trump Derangement Syndrome, or to disparage the physique of men on the show (conveniently forgetting that Star Trek used to shamelessly demean women as sex objects): “Is it rules for thee, but not for me?” (4:30).
His extremist conservative nature can be intuited when he complains that people from the planet Cheron should be extinct (because the original Star Trek series revealed that last two survivors from that planet had both been male) and yet descendants have apparently been shown in this newest series, set a thousand years later. The reappearance of such people – once shown to lead to their own potential extinction because of racist hatred – could fictionally and metaphorically demonstrate that even the most doomed of intolerant characters might somehow survive and grow. Appearing to overlook this symbolism, and ignoring obvious scientific and scientifictional possibilities surrounding this situation – including time travel to rescue other inhabitants, genetic engineering, alternative universes or timelines, or just simply more survivors later being found somewhere across the galaxy (any of these possibilities providing the possible basis for a background story in any episode) – this critic chooses a homophobic rant instead:
“So unless the show is insinuating that the only last two remaining Cheron males managed to bum themselves a whole new population, then this race should be extinct. But actually thinking about what I just said and the people that are running Star Trek nowadays, I probably think that they feel that that’s a viable thing that they could do. “(3:30)
Viewers might be forgiven for wondering whether this gentleman is really simply whingeing that conservative, straight white guys – for most of the last fifty years having enjoyed privileged status in the franchise – are now finding the portrayal of equality with others to somehow threaten their privilege? (see for example 9:26) Ironically, he projects his own narrow perspective onto those people whom he criticises:
“[This new Star Trek] represents a broken bubble, a broken shell of comic Californian wankers who think the world revolves around them… it doesn’t represent Star Trek and it certainly doesn’t represent humanity and people…” (16:47)
Really? So a series that portrays diversity and new forms of inclusion – new species, new characters descended from a mix of races previously portrayed as enemies, characters who break out of stereotypes and boldly explore a strange new world that they are creating… these people don’t represent the highest aspirations of a utopian future?
Lesbians with Cats?
Jones and Ripley in Alien (Wikipedia image)
Another male fan critic spends very little time actually analysing the story and most of his time complaining about the “woke chain” (4:35) and a “lesbian relationship” (4:58) and “the gay Klingon” (5:02) and “the woke degenerate crazy thing” (5:07) and “the feminism” (7:02) and “a bunch of retards just running around” (10:43) and bewailing the possibility that viewers might (shock! Horror!) be forced to watch “the lesbians going at it… full tilt” (10:58), He complains about the injustice of a changing room scene where the men are somewhat unclothed while the women are not – implying that the men are victims of exploitation by Hollywood and suggesting that sexual harassment lawsuits may be on the way (conveniently forgetting Star Trek’s long tradition of sexually exploiting female bodies over the last half century). He even manages to refer to polyamory as “degenerate stuff” (13:00) and praise one episode ever-so-slightly because “at least it wasn’t gay” (15:32) while expressing relief that he wasn’t forced to endure a lesbian romance scene (15:55).
He repeatedly refers to Star Trek writers as 40 year-old women who sip wine and have cats, blaming them for both promoting lesbianism and for the gratuitous male nudity (without seeing any irony in the paradox of allegedly promoting both at the same time); thereby managing to mix his misogyny and homophobia together while also insinuating that the franchise needs straight white guys like him to mansplain non-degenerate perspectives to delusional woke lefties.
Queer Cringe
You get the idea: instead of attempting a balanced, rational review like this one or this one, varied reviews are homophobic, reactionary, or otherwise bigoted, like this one or this one (reviewed by a right-wing woman of colour who appears to promote white supremacist racism by blaming immigrants and their children for crime – see 5:00). Even this one, which attempts to present rational analysis, still manages to disparage the gay and lesbian characters, while this one attempts some analysis under the heading of “Star Woke” as though wokeness is itself a negative. Such unbalanced reviews may, ultimately, still be statistically insignificant, but their rise and empowerment is a cause for concern.
Perhaps the ultimate criticism has come from Stephen Miller, Trump’s White House Deputy Chief of Staff; and Nazi sympathiser Elon Musk; who have both criticised Starfleet Academy for being woke. In response, former Star Trek actor Whoopi Goldberg has criticised their comments as deliberate attempts to distract audiences from the state of the world that these men are actively creating:
“Why are you concentrating on a television show when people are being shot and killed, when people are going hungry, when farmers are losing their farms, kids can’t get meals at school? Why are you paying attention to this?”
This is probably Star Trek’s greatest message, as explored by generations of fan fiction writers exploring same sex relationships (known as “slash”) and other progressive concepts, and other fan activists promoting charity and change: taking Star Trek ideals and “making it so”. Detractors want to return to earlier times and use it as a distraction rather than as inspiration.
Loving the poorly educated
As people who allegedly align themselves with an ongoing franchise (that must, like all literature, adapt to the times or die), they seem remarkably devoid of understanding or empathy regarding inclusion and diversity, or of understanding disadvantage and disempowerment; instead inverting the Star Trek trope of “The needs of the one [themselves] outweigh the needs of the few… or the many [others, especially disempowered or disadvantaged groups]”. They resist the impulse towards self-education through asking questions and accommodating change; they instead prefer past times or privilege and inequality, yearning for past attitudes within which they feel most comfortable.
In doing this, they display the perspectives of extremists such as white Christian nationalists, who perceive the world and culture through a narrow fish-eyed lens:
“Rooted in a long history of American exceptionalism, it fuses white identity politics with a specific brand of fundamentalist Protestant Christianity to create a racist form of a national identity.”
Similarly, these so-called fans, who deny (or disparage as “woke”) the inadequate but sincere attempts at historic progressive inclusion within this franchise, are happy to rewrite or reinterpret the franchise in order to exclude those whom they hate. Some demonstrate a celebratory mood at news that the series may be cancelled early due to their efforts; one fan comment suggests that they would rather see the franchise die than be woke. Thus they take a franchise that seeks to promote utopian ideals, and drag it – and our world – backwards to more regressive values.
Trump and Tradition
While some may see the USA’s cultural and political turmoil as being caused by Trump and his regime, I see Trump as a symptom of a larger malaise. Swathes of US citizens actively deny and oppose their nation’s advances in vaccine and epidemiology, and scientific advances such as the 1960s space program that triggered history’s greatest technological peacetime advances. Moon landings – and their fictional counterparts, Starfleet Academy – are rejected by those who seek to deny the potential greatness and aspirations of their own country and culture; they seek to rewrite history and culture to suit their personal perspectives – as maybe so do we all. The difference is that their view of knowledge is that ignorance is equivalent to world-class expertise; their cosmos is a metaphoric flat earth instead of a rich tapestry of galactic stars and diverse cultures. Unlike them, I look forward to living long enough to having my values and perspectives challenged and educated by those who follow – that’s the value of being woke rather than asleep.
From cardassians to crucifixion, we see the same call for cultural compliance in populist fundamentalist religion having been hijacked by fascism, just as these Star Trek fans seek to rewrite and reboot their favourite quasi-religious franchise in their own image. They revel in creating division and dissent rather than social cohesion.
They are symptomatic of the potential cultural, scientific, social, educational and economic collapse of an empire:
The Archaeologist lists the decline of social cohesion as one factor creating the fall of empires:
“Social Cohesion: A strong sense of shared identity and purpose is essential for a society to thrive. If social divisions deepen and trust breaks down, a society can become vulnerable to internal conflict.”
Instead, we should view literature as an attempt to unite and contribute to our society and our world, in line with humanist values that include an appreciation and involvement in literature and culture:
“We value great works of art, music, literature and architecture regardless of their origin, and respect culturally significant landscapes, geological formations and artifacts. We support their preservation and believe in fair, equitable and culturally sensitive access for all.”
“Leave any bigotry in your quarters. There’s no room for it on the Bridge.
Do I make myself clear?” – Kirk, Balance of Terror (1969)
I grew up watching and loving the original series of Star Trek, which boasted a progressive attitude in its portrayal of African-Americans during the US Civil Rights era. I recall reading a quote from one African-American actor, who later recalled how powerful was the impact of his character, a visiting Black Starfleet Commodore, to whom the white hero James Kirk deferred and called “sir” in an an era where civil rights activists were being murdered in real life. In one episode, racial hatred was even shown as potentially destroying a planetary civilisation (the aforementioned Cheron). Star Trek tried its best within the limits of its commercial constraints for the time, even (wrongly) boasting of featuring television’s first interracial kiss (that kiss is problematic for many reasons) – although the appearance of an African-American woman on the Bridge was certainly groundbreaking for this same era.
Star Trek didn’t get everything right, particularly its early portrayals of women, and its exclusion of LGBT+ characters, but encouraged by its largely female fandom (fully inclusive of LGBT+ and neurodivergent fans) Star Trek evolved with the times, always implying the equality it frequently failed to show. So although I understand why some modern fans bewail the appearance of sexualities or racial realities that previously were never shown – only implied – I do think they need to understand the spirit of the series as much as its stories. Was Star Trek ever woke? Hell yes, ever since 1964.
Whether or not Starfleet Academy is great literature or a great disappointment, it deserves in-depth analysis and appreciation of its values, aspirations and its potential to inspire. Straight white men have enjoyed more than their fair share of representation in the franchise for sixty years; it is time for us all to explore strange new worlds and seek out new life – learning about these others and glimpsing who we ourselves might become as an inclusive species in the future. Gay Klingons, married lesbians, and strong women should be celebrated, not dismissed as evil or deviant or disgusting because some timid people fear what is outside of their traditional life experiences. Those fans who disparage this series because of personality politics have themselves failed the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. They are free to ignore the series and enjoy other literature – or to quote Bob Dylan:
“Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times, they are a-changin’.”
– Bob Dylan
Inclusion is for Everyone
This does not mean we should reject these problematic fans outright: one cure for White Christian Nationalism or other forms of cognitively dissonant extremism is providing a safe space for such people after they face their own disillusionment, disengagement and deradicalisation:
“Hospitality communicates ‘You are welcome here.’ When a person is ready to leave American Christian nationalism, they need a place to land, a genuine community of safe, loving people.”
Starfleet Academy is a victim of its times: an exploration of the future being opposed by luddites and reactionaries. If it has offended those who resist change, and enables them to ultimately question and grow, then it will have done its job. Otherwise, the fan critics who disparage the material are guilty of seeking to revisit and enshrine old times and old attitudes, to divide and destroy our social fabric, and to destroy our opportunities to grow as individuals and as a collective. They are the opposite of traditional fandom, where fans used slash and other diversity to promote a healthy culture of life and growth; these people today promote cultural stagnation and death. Such is symptomatic of a country and a culture that seeks to drag humanity backwards; to “make great again” a mythical concept marrying white elitism, heterosexism, misogyny, racism, authoritarianism and social regression – and even fascism. Star Trek and the future of humanity demand more. It is up to the rest of us to bring these people back from the edge.
Published on 31 December 2025 — the birthday of Diane Marchant, visionary fan, activist, and beloved friend.
Her legacy shaped fandom as a community. This essay honours her memory and the futures she helped us build.
Diane at home, in her Star Trek room, circa 1990. Photo courtesy of Irene Grymbaim.
This essay is the fourth in a series tracing how fandom evolved from storytelling into activism. In earlier chapters, I explored early fandoms as community, speculative fiction as ethics, and storytelling as humanitarian inspiration. Now, I honour my mentor and friend Diane Marchant not only for what she imagined, but for the legacy she built.
She took traditional science fiction fandom, and rebuilt it as an extended family. She helped to shape the Star Trek fan phenomenon, and beyond that, the modern-day media fandom community.
“I was going through a bad time. My sister died and Mum was very ill. I was just coping, going to work, looking after Mum, eating and sleeping. The TV was permanently on in the background.
When Star Trek first came on it didn’t really register, but after a couple of weeks I found I was waiting for it to start every week.
Then I read in a magazine that five women in the USA were forming the Star Trek fan club.
I wrote to them and so became a founding member.”
– Diane Marchant, as interviewed by Eric Scott, “Carry on Trekking!” in TV Times, 8 July 1978, p. 36
In 1978, TV Times magazine sent a reporter to interview Diane Marchant at her home after I had written to them suggesting that she was an important personage worthy of their attention. She spoke, in part, of how her family background had led to her becoming involved with the Star Trek Welcommittee (STW) and ultimately with Australian fans including Austrek. The STW was a US-wide fan support network and information exchange that Diane expanded to encompass the rest of the world. She was spreading the word about Star Trek to fans across Australia and many other nations.
Diane’s interview was perhaps most poignant when she spoke about her personal family tragedy that had led her to become involved in fandom. The loss of her sister (believed to be named Sandra) and her quiet family home – where she and her mother Jessie mourned in solitary silence – led her to becoming attached to a TV program that gave her hope for the future.
Diane Marchant with her mother Jessie at Trekcon 1 (Australia’s first Star Trek convention) on 15 July 1978. (Photo by Helena Binns)
The interview came at an early time of Australian Star Trek fandom, but Diane was already approaching the age of forty. Diane did not disclose much about her early life, and nothing is known about her father. Although many fan friends remember Diane mentioning the passing of her sister, nobody remembers having ever been told any other details, including her name. However, a wedding notice in Melbourne’s “Age” newspaper on Monday 20 Oct 1947 reports that two nieces of the bride – named Diane and Sandra Marchant – served as flower girl and train bearer at a Melbourne wedding. If this is our Diane, she would have been seven years old, and it seems plausible from the context of the note that these two girls were sisters (*and that her sister’s name was therefore Sandra). It is also possible that Diane again served as a flower girl at another family wedding (in country New South Wales) in 1953 when she was thirteen. Both these wedding notices use the less common spelling of the name “Diane” (as opposed to “Dianne” which is more common in Australia), which suggests that the age and name in these reports both fit our Diane. Both events also imply that as a child she belonged within a healthily extended biological family, but by the time Diane became known in fandom, this appears to have shrunk to just Diane and her mother.
Diane (on the right) catches up with her friend Judith at Victoricon in 1991.
This is not to say that Diane was lonely – she had friends and made many more through fandom. One of her oldest (childhood) friends was Judith Giarusso, who remained friends with Diane up through fandom and for all their lives. As Diane was receiving palliative care in hospital towards the end of her life, one of Judith’s granddaughters visited her from Tasmania.
Tait 317M seen passing Kensington on its way to Essendon. Photographer: Matthew Davalle (Wikimedia Commons), CC BY-SA 4.0
Diane spent her early adult life as a primary school teacher, and even used Star Trek as inspiration to encourage her students to write stories. By the time she became involved in fandom in the mid-to-late 1970s, she had already left teaching forever. This was the result of a back injury during a school excursion, when she had tried to help some students alight from a broken-down train carriage in between train stations. She told me she recalled standing on the train tracks and reaching up to lift a child who was standing in the carriage above her head – when she felt a sudden and sharp stab of pain in her lower back. She spent much of her subsequent life on a pension, battling chronic back pain, and she tried hard to live a productive life regardless. Star Trek became a new avenue for her creativity, leadership skills, and community building.
One early club member, Tracy Jackman, recalls:
“I first met Diane Marchant when I became a member of Austrek in my late teens. Long before Google and the internet, Diane was our ‘information super highway’ for all the news about Star Trek and our direct link to Gene and Majel Roddenberry and the Star Trek universe. Even more than that, Diane was a friend, a warm, funny and generous person who would have regular gatherings on a Friday night, at her home in Mordialloc, where a loyal group of Austrek members would talk into the small hours of the next morning on an array of many different life topics, not just Star Trek (Diane, if you didn’t know, was also a devoted Michael Rennie fan).
“We would all squeeze into her living room eat, drink and be merry much to the amusement (I think) of Diane’s mother Jessie. Diane also had a very special ‘Star Trek’ room full of mementos, collectables, fanzines and fan art which she would let us all enjoy. These wonderful gatherings were both entertaining and educational and a safe haven with like minded people who didn’t give you that questioning side glance which always said ‘but Star Trek, it’s just a TV show’. Diane gave generously of her time, attending many Austrek meetings and special events, Star Trek marathons and conventions and was awarded a life membership of Austrek for all her hard work and efforts especially in her official role of Star Trek Welcommittee representative for Australia (and most of the world).
“After Gene Roddenberry passed away, Diane withdrew from many of the official functions of her role with the Star Trek Welcommittee but I did my best to keep in touch with cards and letters until her passing in April, 2006. Many of us who had the pleasure of being a welcomed part of those Friday night gatherings attended her funeral and reminisced fondly of these times we spent together.”
Fandom is not a recent invention. Long before it took on its modern meaning of cultural nerdiness, it functioned as a space where people gathered to form extended family communities, imagine utopias, and practice the ethics that those imaginary worlds required. In temples, churches, forums, town centres, convention halls, schools, living rooms, and eventually in modern fan circles, fans built community across the generations – from the ancient Romans being fanboys of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, to recent US citizens cosplaying cowboys and creating the gun-happy, wild-western ethos of their modern culture.
Diane plugged into that old fan practice of enthusing, including, and reaching out to extend welcome. She helped fans across Australia (and around the world) to network by letter in the pre-Internet age. She helped clubs to form and solidify their activities, and she assisted fans to join those clubs.
Diane (left) with Gene Roddenberry (right) at the 1975 Star Trek Lives convention in New York.
“Julie Townsend and I were in high-school when we wrote to the Welcommittee mentioned in one of James Blish’s Star Trek novelizations. Diane wrote back to us with names and addresses of other Aus. Star Trek fans who had contacted her (including Susan Batho, or Sue Clarke as she was back then.) We formed ASTREX, where I began writing fanfic and learning other fannish skills, predominantly from Sue. I wonder if my life would have been so rewarding if Diane Marchant hadn’t been the catalyst that lead me into fandom. Edwina. Rob Jan writes: Diane was one of the people responsible for me encountering fandom and was an influential lady…”
My own recollections include meeting Diane at a Star Trek film Marathon, and later having to ring a mysterious “D. Marchant” from the Welcommittee – only to discover that they were the same lady! She gave the club Austrek a great deal of moral and material support, including purchasing over 100 postal stamps for us to mail out the first club newsletter.
“Shut up…we’re by no means setting a precedent.”
– Diane Marchant’s opening words in “A Fragment Out of Time”, 1974.
Diane at the Syncon 72 convention, August 1972 (Photo by Sue Batho).
Fan fiction has been a fundamental component of fandom, from oral myths to collections of stories compiled into legends or sacred texts, or other forms of art, craft, song and dance. Many indigenous and ancient cultures continued their fanfic traditions where oral stories got retold and rebooted every generation by troubadours, griots and town criers. Beyond the epics of Homer or the fanfic of Shakespeare, what we now label ‘fic’ became a form of truth-telling; where audiences of populist culture rewrote endings, queer fans reimagined futures, overlooked minority fans recast themselves into a world of diversity and equality, and differently-abled fans crafted heroes who moved through the world with dignity.
Fanfic changed literature forever – from the Gospels collected as oral myths becoming established dogma, to Robin Hood stories empowering burglars to rob from the rich and give to themselves (the poor), or tales of Australia’s legendary drop bears scaring tourists. But medieval Europe had its own reboot that reshaped its community culture — the legends of Dark Age conflict and survival during eras of plague and pestilence, instead became the stories of Camelot, Arthur, and the code of chivalry. Knights pledged fealty not only to kings, but to ideals of love, loyalty, and sacrifice. The concept of courtly love — a knight’s devotion to a noble lady — became a cultural script, shaping literature, art, and social norms across centuries.
Troubadours and poets like Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France remixed these myths into serialized romances, complete with quests, emotional arcs, and fan-favorite pairings. These were unauthorized continuations, alternate perspectives, and moral expansions of Arthurian canon. C.S. Lewis even called it “a religion of love”. Robin Hood stories became more romantic – Maid Marion was introduced to become the romantic lead; the Sheriff of Nottingham became the villain in the Robin Hood romance tradition.
In our lifetime, Diane did the same thing to Star Trek.
Leonard Nimoy visits Diane’s house in Melbourne during the late 1970s.
The first Star Trek fanzine, Spockanalia, was published in 1967, and this led to an explosion of paper fanzines containing Star Trek fan fiction. Australia’s first fanzine, Terran Times, began in 1969. Diane began contributing stories and artwork to this and many overseas fanzines. But her biggest single contribution to fan fiction culture was arguably a ‘slash’ story called, “A Fragment Out of Time”, which she submitted to an adult fanzine, Grup, in 1974. It featured two unnamed lovers who later turned out to be Kirk and Spock. The story’s opening line about not setting a precedent was both ironic and indicative of the idea that she had not expected it to actually be published, but she had likely written it to join a series of underground, hand-written fan stories containing adult material that were circulating covertly among fans. This may explain why she never to my knowledge talked about the story or slash to me or to anyone I knew. Maybe she was shy, maybe she was embarrassed, or perhaps she was fearful that her local Catholic church might find out she had written a naughty story – or even worse, that Paramount or Gene Roddenberry might in some way censure her for doing so. They never did.
Perhaps as a way of lessening her fears or embarassment or guilt, Diane later wrote a series of vignettes called “Fragments’ which we published in our “SPOCK” fanzine for school children; this series being about a sexual relationship between Spock and Christine Chapel (they were her favourite pairing, and accordingly she loved both Amok Time and Plato’s Stepchildren).
Ultimately, Star Trek as a television series that had commercially failed – getting cancelled and forgotten after three years – was popularised and resurrected because legions of fans were reading and writing fan stories about the Kirk-Spock relationship and similar material. A billion dollar Star Trek franchise was born, in part because Diane had pioneered a form of fan fiction that can now be found in fandom everywhere: from Sherlock Holmes to Harry Potter. It is hoped that one day, the franchise will recognise the contribution of fans.
Diane with Diddums, photo by Helena Binns
Diane eventually resigned from the Star Trek Welcommittee after Gene’s death, because she felt the magic had lessened. Instead, she became active in her local church, forming a local “Welcomming Committee” to help new congregants.
The last time I saw Diane, she was sick in the hospital; and as I left, Diane flashed me a friendly smile and gave me the Vulcan salute – wishing me to, “Live Long and Prosper” even though she knew she would do neither. I will never forget her cheeky farewell grin as she sat on her bed and smiled at me (with her Vulcan salute) as I left through the door.
On behalf of her fan friends, I was able to give a fan eulogy at her funeral, where I read aloud (with Betsi’s permission) a poem from fan author Betsi Ashton, including the following words:
She had dared to dream
Of a world where hate
And nationalism were barred.
Where the countries of Earth
Were linked as states,
And minds were no longer scarred.
She had searched through
The cloudless skies, at night
Beyond the edge of the world,
And her mind leaped out
In a boundless flight,
To mingle where stars are hurled.
If only we all had such a wondrous view of the universe around us, and such positive aspirations for the future.
The Vulcan “IDIC” symbol from Star Trek, representing Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.
It will soon be twenty years since her departure, and the utopian future she envisaged seems possibly even further away now than it was during her lifetime. But I see Diane’s legacy continue:
Austrek has lived long and prospered.
Members who met their spouses in the club, continue to raise their now-adult families.
People whose lives were saved by the club – its social networking, its support, its existence as extended family – continue to survive and succeed.
Authors who began with writing fan fiction and who ultimately graduated to other, professional writing, continue to be thankful for the start that fandom gave them.
Fans who told Diane that they were inspired to become doctors, teachers, nurses (or astronauts!) continue to live productive, fulfilling lives and contribute to the future around them.
Austrek continues to inspire and excite, encouraging people to form new friendships and explore their own strange, new worlds.
I recall one fan from the early days of Austrek. She had medical difficulties and had been estranged by her family, so Star Trek fandom served as one of her newly-adopted extended families. We helped ensure she got eye surgery when needed, and although she became legally blind and moved interstate, she continued to be involved in fandom and its activities. When she recently passed away, a bequest was donated to Austrek in her memory – serving to demonstrate that even after fifty years, the importance of fandom as extended family continues to resonate in people’s lives. Diane helped to lay that foundation.
“With Jacqueline Lichtenburg, Diane formed the Star Trek Welcommittee in 1972. She worked tirelessly at answering the many thousands of enquiries from Star Trek fans and putting them in contact with each other. She became known for the wacky story lines she would come out with when workshopping with other writers. Susan Batho relates: “I met Diane in 1972 at Syncon 72, and we took over a panel on Star Trek and tossed around story ideas for nearly 6 hours…And we were firm friends thereafter…And for the record: she wrote the first published K/S story in GRUP. She made a difference in many peoples’ lives and will be remembered. Live long and prosper, Diane.”
Fanthropology 101: Dreaming and Doing in the Real World
A four-part journey through how fandom helps us imagine better futures, and build them.
Part One: Forgotten Futures How two dreamers imagined a better world, and gave us tools to build it
Published: 8 September 2025 Read Part One
Edward Bellamy and Gene Roddenberry didn’t just write stories, they sketched blueprints for justice, dignity, and shared humanity. Their utopias still shape how fans rehearse better futures.
Part Two: Dream It Forward Why fandom isn’t just fun, it’s how we practice empathy
Published: 4 October 2025 Read Part Two
From Arthurian quests to Star Trek conventions, this chapter shows how fandom helps us rehearse courage, community, and care, turning stories into solidarity, and imagination into action.
Part Three: Fandom’s Humanitarian Legacy How fans built real-world networks of care, long before hashtags and headlines
Published: 25 November 2025 Read Part Three
Ficathons, charity drives, and survivor support groups…this essay documents how fandom became a lifeline for many, offering help where institutions failed.
Part Four: From Fic to Future Fan fiction isn’t just storytelling, it’s ethical and pragmatic life guidance
Published: 31 December 2025 Read Part Four
Honouring Diane Marchant and the legacy of fan creators, this chapter explores how fandom helps us rewrite injustice, rehearse empathy, and build continuity across generations.
Portions of this were reworked and republished on 15 March 2026 to add material and clarify some biographical information about Diane.
This essay is published in celebration of Star Trek Day (8 September) the anniversary of the original series’ premiere in 1966. It honours the visionary legacy of humanist Gene Roddenberry and the enduring dream of a better future for all humanity.
Art by Copilot AI
“With a tear for the dark past…”
“…turn we then to the dazzling future, and, veiling our eyes, press forward.”
— Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000–1887
“It isn’t all over…”
“…everything has not been invented; the human adventure is just beginning.”
— Gene Roddenberry, on Star Trek’s vision
In 1888, Edward Bellamy published a novel that sold over a million copies, inspired a political movement, and imagined a future without poverty or greed. Looking Backward: 2000–1887 was more than fiction. It was a blueprint for a better world. Bellamy’s vision of a cooperative, egalitarian society captured the imagination of a generation grappling with the chaos of industrial capitalism.
Set in the year 2000, Looking Backward follows Julian West, a 19th-century man who awakens in a future Boston transformed by nationalized industry, universal employment, and economic equality. In Bellamy’s utopia, citizens receive equal credit from the state, labour is honoured, and poverty has been eradicated. The novel presents a society governed by reason, solidarity, and shared prosperity; a future where competition has given way to cooperation, and justice is built into the very structure of daily life.
Nearly a century later, Gene Roddenberry picked up the torch. His creation, Star Trek, launched in 1966, offered a similarly hopeful vision: a future where humanity had transcended its divisions, embraced peace, and explored the stars not for conquest, but for understanding. Roddenberry’s Federation was Bellamy’s Boston in orbit; an evolved society built on shared purpose, moral clarity, and technological abundance.
Today, few remember Bellamy’s name… and Roddenberry’s legacy could learn lessons from why.
Before we confront the threats facing utopian storytelling today, it’s worth asking: what kind of thinker was Edward Bellamy or Gene Roddenberry?
From Human to Humanist
Was Edward Bellamy a Humanist?
Although Edward Bellamy lived before the modern humanist movement, his utopian vision in Looking Backward resonates deeply with humanist principles: reason, compassion, and social justice. He imagined a society where cooperation replaced competition, and civic dignity was prioritized over profit — ideals rooted in Enlightenment thinking.
Raised in a religious household, Bellamy’s philosophy evolved into what Arthur E. Morgan called a “religion of solidarity”: a secular ethic grounded in empathy and collective responsibility. His blueprint featured universal employment, equal resource distribution, and respect for labour — all hallmarks of humanist ethics.
In many ways, Bellamy was a proto-humanist: an early voice calling for a society built on justice, reason, and shared humanity. His legacy continues to inspire those who believe a better world is achievable through moral imagination and collective effort.
Was Gene Roddenberry a Humanist?
Yes — formally, proudly, and profoundly. Gene Roddenberry was not merely aligned with humanist ideals; he was publicly recognized as a humanist and used Star Trek as a vehicle to express those values. His vision of the future was secular, ethical, and radically optimistic — a moral blueprint for humanity’s potential. Humanists UK
Belief in human progress: Roddenberry envisioned a society where exploration replaced conquest, and knowledge was pursued for the betterment of all. His optimism reflected a belief in humanity’s capacity to evolve through empathy, science, and cooperation. Screen Rant
Secular ethics: A lifelong atheist, Roddenberry rejected supernaturalism and embraced a moral framework rooted in dignity, justice, and rational inquiry. His characters were ethical agents, navigating complex dilemmas with integrity and courage. We’re History
Focus on equality and dignity: The Federation abolished poverty, prejudice, and currency. Starfleet officers served not for profit, but for principle (embodying humanist ideals of pluralism, peace, and shared responsibility). CBR
Roddenberry’s humanism remains a living tradition. Yet today, both his and Bellamy’s visions face mounting threats from political extremism and religious fundamentalism, to corporate censorship and cultural decline. In a post-truth world where science is contested and empathy dismissed, their utopias remind us that the human adventure is not guaranteed; it must be defended.
Philosophical Parallels: Two Utopias, One Dream
Art by Copilot AI
Though separated by nearly a century, Edward Bellamy and Gene Roddenberry imagined futures where humanity had outgrown its divisions. Both rejected the zero-sum logic of capitalism and envisioned peace not as the absence of war, but the presence of justice.
Bellamy’s utopia was economic: a society where money was obsolete, work was honoured, and citizens received equal credit from the state. His future was built on solidarity and civic dignity.
Roddenberry’s vision was moral and technological. In Star Trek, replicators eliminated scarcity, and exploration replaced conquest. The Federation had no currency, no poverty, and no prejudice. Starfleet officers were philosopher-engineers, guided by ethics and curiosity.
Roddenberry extended Bellamy’s dream beyond humanity. His Federation embraced sentientism: dignity for all self-aware beings, from Vulcans to androids. This shift anticipated today’s debates on AI rights, animal ethics, and planetary stewardship. His utopia wasn’t just post-scarcity; it was post-anthropocentric.
Both men believed that, given the right conditions, humanity could evolve into something noble. Their futures weren’t just fantasies… they were moral blueprints.
“Starfleet was founded to seek out new life — well, there it sits! Waiting.”
— Captain Jean-Luc Picard, The Measure of a Man (TNG, Season 2)
Both men’s visions rejected the zero-sum logic of capitalism. Both imagined peace not as the absence of war, but as the presence of justice. And both believed that humanity, given the right conditions, could evolve into something noble.
Why Bellamy Faded
Despite his enormous influence in the late 19th century, Bellamy’s legacy dimmed over time. His utopia, once a rallying cry for reformers, became a relic.
Static vision:Looking Backward presented a finished society — perfect, harmonious, and unchanging. Over time, this began to feel sterile and implausible.
Political baggage: Bellamy’s Nationalist Clubs promoted democratic socialism, which later became controversial and misunderstood.
Literary shifts: As dystopias rose in popularity, Bellamy’s earnest optimism felt out of step with the darker tone of modern fiction.
From Clubs to Culture
Bellamy’s Nationalist Clubs were more than political experiments. They were early rehearsals of utopia. These grassroots groups built community around shared ideals, much like fandoms today. Their meetings, publications, and mutual aid efforts foreshadowed the participatory culture that Star Trek fans would later embody.
Roddenberry didn’t just inherit Bellamy’s blueprint; he reengineered it. Where Bellamy’s followers organized politically, Trek fans organized culturally. The Federation became more than fiction; it became a metaphor for participatory hope.
Why Roddenberry Endures
Roddenberry’s utopia didn’t arrive fully formed. It evolved. That adaptability is key to its lasting appeal. Star Trek unfolded over decades, across series and films. Each generation reinterpreted the Federation’s ideals through new characters, challenges, and cultural lenses. It absorbed real-world issues (civil rights, gender equality, environmentalism) and reflected them back through allegory. It wasn’t static; it was affective.
Bellamy’s vision was locked in print; a frozen ideal. The modern world ultimately left him behind. Roddenberry’s dream endured because it was ironically sustained by the very capitalism he sought to critique. For commercial reasons, the franchise evolved to stay relevant: it took three decades to assign captaincy to African-American and female leads, and five decades to acknowledge LGBT+ existence. Progress didn’t move at warp speed, but it moved.
Roddenberry didn’t just imagine a better potential future: he set in motion a living dream: one that continues to adapt, provoke, and inspire.
Relevance Today
In an age of climate crisis, automation, and rising inequality, Bellamy’s dream may be less naïve than it once seemed. Universal basic income, cooperative economics, and post-scarcity technologies are no longer science fiction; they are policy debates.
Roddenberry’s Federation continues to inspire. But perhaps it’s time to revisit Bellamy… not as a relic, but as a reminder. His vision of economic justice, civic dignity, and peaceful progress still speaks to our deepest hopes. If Roddenberry gave us the stars, Bellamy gave us the ground beneath them: a vision of Earth as it could be, if we dared to dream again.
“Humanity has the stars in its future…”
“…and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.”
— Isaac Asimov, I, Asimov: A Memoir
From Cultural Vanguard to Cultural Crossroads
For much of the 20th century, the United States shaped the global imagination. Through Hollywood, pop music, and television, it exported ideals of freedom, innovation, and moral debate. Star Trek was one of its beacons — a utopia imagined in its own image, inviting the world to dream along.
Even the name “America,” claimed solely by the United States, reflects a linguistic imperialism that erases the rest of the continent. This rhetorical dominance parallels the Federation’s own framing: a utopia imagined in the image of U.S. exceptionalism. Just as Starfleet’s command structure echoes military hierarchy, the Federation’s cultural ethos often mirrors American liberalism more than universal pluralism.
But that dominance is fading. Audiences now turn to stories from South Korea, India, Turkey, and beyond. Bollywood, Nollywood, Wellywood, and other industries offer narratives rooted in their own values and struggles. The promise of globalization has faltered, and US media often feels disconnected.
Meanwhile, political extremism and corporate censorship threaten the integrity of US storytelling. Sanitized scripts and cancelled voices signal a retreat from bold imagination. Star Trek always suffered from the tension to “boldly go” into social issue stories without offending sponsors or studio executives, and even today there are culture wars about whether the program should be woke or weak. Is it a commercial “starship” enterprise, or a mythic “Starship Enterprise”?
Utopia Under Siege: Star Trek, Censorship, and the Cultural Decline
The sky is darkening. The utopian dream, once nurtured by visionaries like Roddenberry, now faces mounting threats.
Recent events suggest that the utopian dream, once nurtured by visionaries like Roddenberry, is now under threat. The reported cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert by CBS, following Colbert’s criticism of Donald Trump and Paramount’s corporate dealings, is more than a media controversy. It’s a warning sign. When political pressure intersects with corporate interests, even satire becomes dangerous.
This isn’t just about one voice being silenced. It’s about the erosion of the cultural spaces where dissent, imagination, and moral clarity once thrived. If Hollywood (the engine behind Star Trek) begins to mirror the authoritarianism it once critiqued, then the Federation itself may be at risk.
Roddenberry’s universe was built on ethical courage. It challenged racism, war, and tyranny. It imagined a future where truth mattered and justice prevailed. But if the institutions behind Star Trek now prioritize profit over principle, what remains of that vision?
The decline of US cultural leadership isn’t measured in box office numbers. It’s measured in the stories we no longer dare to tell, the questions we no longer ask, and the ideals we no longer defend. Star Trek emerged from a nation steeped in contradiction: a self-declared champion of human rights, yet shaped by war, empire, and inequality. Starfleet, for all its utopian rhetoric, was modelled on military command — a structure that both enabled ethical exploration and mirrored the hierarchies it claimed to transcend. Within that tension, the franchise once dared to imagine better: a Federation built not on conquest, but on cooperation, pluralism, and moral clarity.
Today, that cultural and moral imagination is under siege. The rise of political and religious fundamentalism — exclusionary in tone, authoritarian in practice — has narrowed the cultural bandwidth for dissent, empathy, and ethical inquiry. The Trump movement didn’t invent this erosion, but they accelerated it: openly denying science and winding back human rights, normalizing cruelty and abuse, banning books and people they deem undesirable, cancelling history and stories they oppose, undermining truth and difference of opinion, denying diversity and empathy, and recasting pluralism as a threat. If Star Trek loses its edge, as part of a larger erosion of culture and human freedoms, we lose more than a franchise. We lose a tradition of storytelling that once challenged power from within, offered refuge to the marginalized, and insisted that a better future was possible, even when history said otherwise. The retreat from that vision signals not just creative fatigue, but a deeper cultural surrender.
“For small creatures such as we…”
“…the vastness is bearable only through love.”
— Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Where to From Here?
The decline of US cultural dominance doesn’t mean the end of utopian dreaming; it means the dream must evolve. Let global voices reinterpret the Federation. Let Nairobi, Seoul, or São Paulo imagine new futures. Defend artistic freedom. Reclaim moral imagination. Roddenberry’s vision was never a monument; it was a movement. And movements must adapt, resist, and renew.
Beyond the Federation: Utopia, Culture, and the Global Imagination
Star Trek’s Federation reached for the stars, but its roots were planted in Bellamy’s soil — a dream of justice before warp drives. For decades, U.S. culture dominated the global imagination, exporting ideals of freedom and exploration. But that dominance came with blind spots: a monocultural lens that often flattened diverse traditions into a singular mythology.
Today, a renaissance of global storytelling is reshaping what utopia can mean. From Korean dramas and Africanfuturism to Indigenous speculative fiction and Islamic futurism, new voices are expanding the dream. These visions bring fresh textures (spiritual, communal, ecological) that challenge and enrich the legacy of Roddenberry and Bellamy.
A truly universal utopia won’t be built from one culture’s imagination alone. It must be a mosaic: plural, evolving, and rooted in shared humanity. If Bellamy gave us justice and Roddenberry gave us wonder, perhaps the next utopia will give us balance between cultures, between Earth and stars, between past and future.
“To learn which questions are unanswerable…”
“…and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Today, we are witnessing a renaissance of global storytelling. From Korean dramas and Chinese myth-based video games to Indigenous speculative fiction and Africanfuturism, new voices are reshaping what utopia can mean. These visions bring fresh textures — spiritual, communal, ecological — that challenge, enrich and supersede the US dream.
What began as a singular vision must now become a mosaic: plural, evolving, and rooted in shared humanity.
A truly universal utopia will not be built from one culture’s imagination alone. It will be a mosaic: plural, evolving, and rooted in shared humanity. If Bellamy gave us justice and Roddenberry gave us wonder, perhaps the next utopia will give us balance — between cultures, between Earth and stars, between past and future.
Despite their utopian ideals, both Bellamy and Roddenberry reflected the gender norms of their time. Bellamy’s vision granted women economic equality but confined them to roles deemed suitable for their “disqualifications,” with domesticity idealized over independence. Roddenberry, especially in The Original Series, often portrayed women through a lens of sexualization and subordination, despite later efforts to evolve. Their futures imagined justice, but left gender equity unfinished. As we dream forward, we must ensure that tomorrow’s utopias do not inherit yesterday’s exclusions. Bellamy source, Roddenberry source
Women and Fandom: The Heart of the Trek Legacy
“I have always said that Star Trek introduced science fiction to women… and women to science fiction.” — Geoff Allshorn
Star Trek didn’t just imagine a better future; it invited people to help build it. Despite their trivialisation and objectification in the program, women became central from the beginning. In 1966, Nichelle Nichols’ Lt. Uhura broke television barriers. She wasn’t a sidekick, she was a linguist, a bridge officer, and a symbol of dignity. Her presence inspired generations, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who urged her to stay, calling her “part of history.”
Since then, Trek has introduced powerful women like Janeway, Kira, Seven of Nine, and Burnham — leaders who challenged norms and expanded the franchise’s moral imagination. Behind the camera, women shaped Trek as writers, producers, and critics. Nana Visitor’s A Woman’s Trek chronicles this evolution, showing how the series mirrored — and sometimes led — shifts in women’s roles.
Women fans have done more than watch — they’ve rebuilt the culture around Trek. From zines to fanfic, conventions to campaigns, they’ve reimagined identity, justice, and belonging. Their engagement is co-authorship. They didn’t just keep the dream alive. They made it real.
Contrary to stereotypes, surveys show that Trek fans are as likely to be women as men. They’ve defended the franchise’s inclusive ideals, challenged its blind spots, and created entire subcultures around its values. As Professor Daryl G. Frazetti notes, Star Trek functions as a secular myth, and women have been among its most powerful mythmakers.
In many ways, women and fandom are the Federation’s real architects. They’ve kept the dream alive, not just on screen, but in the world. The next utopia must rise from the margins: from the voices long excluded from the cultural blueprint.
Diane Marchant with her mother Jessie at Trekcon 1 (Australia’s first Star Trek convention) on 15 July 1978. (Photo by Helena Binns)
Fandom itself has long been a space where women thrive. Contrary to stereotypes, surveys show that Star Trek fans are as likely to be women as men, and they span every age, background, and identity. StarTrek.com’s fandom study confirms this. Women fans have written fan fiction, organized conventions, and defended the franchise’s inclusive ideals when corporate interests faltered.
Costume parade at Trekcon 1, 15 July 1978. Women comprise a significant proportion of the participants.(Photo from my collection)
Women have not only shaped the stories of Star Trek. They’ve reshaped the meaning of fandom itself. From early zine culture to modern fan fiction, women have long used Trek as a canvas for reimagining identity, justice, and belonging. This participation has often challenged the franchise’s own boundaries, pushing it toward greater inclusivity. Yet it also raises questions about cultural appropriation: when fans reinterpret Trek through feminist, queer, or decolonial lenses, are they expanding the myth, or appropriating it from corporate control? The relationship between fans and franchise is symbiotic, but not always equal. Women fans have campaigned to save cancelled series, demanded better representation, and created entire subcultures around Trek’s ideals. Their engagement is not passive consumption; it’s active co-authorship. As Professor Daryl G. Frazetti notes in his study of fandom, Star Trek functions as a secular myth, and women have been among its most powerful mythmakers.
In many ways, women and fandom are the Federation’s real architects. They’ve kept the dream alive — not just on screen, but in the world. The next utopia must rise from the margins: from the voices long excluded from the cultural blueprint.
“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle…”
“…because we do not live single-issue lives.”
— Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider (1984)
Pluralist Futures: Global, Intersectional, and Ethical
Speculative fiction has long mirrored society — but often through a narrow lens. Today, that mirror is cracking open. Indigenous futurism reclaims ancestral memory and land sovereignty. Queer utopias celebrate chosen families and radical love. Africanfuturism, Islamic futurism, and Pacific Islander storytelling bring spiritual, communal, and ecological textures to the dream.
Roddenberry imagined technology as liberation. But today’s tools — algorithms, drones, biometric surveillance — often serve power, not people. Utopia must now grapple with this duality: can we build tools that dignify, not dominate?
These aren’t just representational wins. They’re philosophical revolutions. The next utopia must be a mosaic — plural, evolving, and rooted in shared humanity. If Bellamy gave us justice and Roddenberry gave us wonder, perhaps the next utopia will give us balance.
Fandom as Resistance: Keeping the Flame Alive
Star Trek fandom has always been more than cosplay and convention. It’s been a crucible of dissent. Fans have demanded representation, challenged militarism, and reimagined canon through zines, fanfic, and activism. Their engagement is not passive consumption — it’s co-authorship.
As studios sanitize scripts and silence dissent, fans keep the flame alive. Roddenberry’s utopia survives not because of Hollywood, but because of the people who refuse to let it die. The next Federation won’t be built by corporations — it will be imagined by communities who dream forward, together.
A Final Reflection: The Gesture of Utopia
Utopia isn’t a genre; it’s a choice. A refusal to accept the world as it is. Bellamy and Roddenberry dared to dream beyond their time. Today, we must do the same.
Let the next Federation rise from Nairobi, Seoul, or São Paulo. Let it speak in many tongues, walk many paths, and honour many ancestors. Let it be messy, plural, and alive.
Because the future of utopia is not “American.” It is human. And humanity, at its best, dreams forward… together.
“We are part of this universe…”
“…we are in this universe, but more importantly, the universe is in us.”
— Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
Sources & Citations
This bibliography reflects a deliberate blend of primary texts, scholarly commentary, and cultural sources, each chosen to honour the intellectual lineage and activist spirit of speculative fiction. Citations are presented not merely as academic obligation, but as a gesture of respect: to the thinkers, creators, and communities whose visions shaped this work.
Sources span traditional scholarship, fan studies, and multimedia platforms, acknowledging that utopian discourse lives both in books and in fandom. Where possible, I cite original publication dates and creators to preserve historical context. I include Wikipedia and fan sites selectively, not as authorities, but as cultural artefacts that reflect participatory knowledge-making.
Isaac Asimov, 1994. I, Asimov: A memoir, Doubleday.
Edward Bellamy, 1888. Looking Backward: 2000–1887, Ticknor and Company.
Gregory Claeys, 2010. The Origins of Dystopia: Wells, Huxley and Orwell, Oxford Academic.
Martin Gardner, 1983. Bellamy’s Utopia Revisited, New Criterion.
Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ace Books.
Antonia Lipsett, 2019. “Roddenberry’s ethics and the Federation”, We’re History.
Audre Lorde, 1984. Sister outsider: Essays and speeches, Crossing Press.
Diane Marchant & Helena Binns, 1978. Trekcon 1 photograph, Fanlore.
This essay is both a tribute and a challenge. As a lifelong humanist and fan, I’ve always seen speculative fiction not just as entertainment, but as ethical rehearsal: a way to imagine justice, dignity, and shared humanity. Bellamy and Roddenberry gave us blueprints. Fandom gave us tools. The future will be built by those who dare to dream forward, together.
My thanks to the communities who keep these dreams alive in zines, in classrooms, in convention halls, and in quiet acts of courage. And to readers: may you find in these pages not just nostalgia, but possibility.
Fanthropology 101: Dreaming and Doing in the Real World
A four-part journey through how fandom helps us imagine better futures, and build them.
Part One: Forgotten Futures How two dreamers imagined a better world, and gave us tools to build it
Published: 8 September 2025 Read Part One
Edward Bellamy and Gene Roddenberry didn’t just write stories, they sketched blueprints for justice, dignity, and shared humanity. Their utopias still shape how fans rehearse better futures.
Part Two: Dream It Forward Why fandom isn’t just fun, it’s how we practice empathy
Published: 4 October 2025 Read Part Two
From Arthurian quests to Star Trek conventions, this chapter shows how fandom helps us rehearse courage, community, and care, turning stories into solidarity, and imagination into action.
Part Three: Fandom’s Humanitarian Legacy How fans built real-world networks of care, long before hashtags and headlines
Published: 25 November 2025 Read Part Three
Ficathons, charity drives, and survivor support groups…this essay documents how fandom became a lifeline for many, offering help where institutions failed.
Part Four: From Fic to Future Fan fiction isn’t just storytelling, it’s ethical and pragmatic life guidance
Published: 31 December 2025 Read Part Four
Honouring Diane Marchant and the legacy of fan creators, this chapter explores how fandom helps us rewrite injustice, rehearse empathy, and build continuity across generations.
