rhaynes

I had a similar experience rewatching Doctor Who a few years ago. But then I remembered it's written as a children's show. It introduces some genuinely terrifying concepts in a package that's developmentally appropriate.

That's why I referenced fables. Your complaint is that Star Trek is too fable-like. I would argue that it's appropriate for a 12-year-old and having culturally relevant and age appropriate material to introduce to developing minds is important.

The original article's thesis is that powerful institutions can also be good. If I were a teenager right now, I would feel the opposite based on what I see around me. I might believe the solution is to tear it all down. Stories about duty to higher ideals provide an alternative narrative that can easily be found in actual history (Lincoln's belief in the union, Churchill's belief in democracy).

> Odyssey has less predictable structure

Yes, the Odyssey is higher up the hierarchy from fables and Star Trek. The core of the story is reclaiming identity when separated from everything you know. Calypso is the height of this. She offers to free Odysseus from his identity as a mortal human. Seven of Nine reclaiming her humanity is probably the closest parallel to Odysseus in a simpler, more predictable package.

Thought about your Shakespeare point a bit more. I was wrong in saying "most". I should have said "well-known" Shakespeare: Good and bad is clear in Lear, Richard III, Othello, Macbeth and they're still worthwhile stories about human nature. It's gray in I Henry IV and Coriolanus. Hamlet is more complex: it's a well-known play and the bad guys are clear, but the good guy struggles with taking action. But the original comment I was countering was that popular entertainment doesn't have anything to tell us about leadership. I think that the fact that Homer and Shakespeare have stayed popular for centuries and that we're here in 2026 ranking them against other popular entertainment/fiction supports that humans in all time periods create stories to explore real concepts and those stories become popular and stay popular when other people see reality reflected in them.

> Homer is ... not a moralizing adventure.

Not from a modern perspective, but wouldn't it be from the perspective of a warrior/honor culture? Agamemnon steals Achilles' property/prize and Achilles has to figure out the morally right response given the expectations of his culture.

> Homer is nothing like Star Trek

Isn't Voyager at least somewhat like the Odyssey? It's the challenge of maintaining one's cultural/self-identity through the long journey home (loyalty to his crew/household in Ithaca : loyalty to Federation ideals, see Equinox). It even included sirens (Prime Factors, Bliss, and literally in Favorite son) and the decision to take on Scylla or Charybdis (travel through Borg space or go the long way around with different unknowns).

> super simplistic white white good against badly bad evil

That's more Star Wars than Star Trek (though I would make the case that's a necessary step on the hierarchy of stories for human cognitive development). It's there in Star Trek but plenty of TNG episodes explore nuance in cultural relativity (Half a Life, The Outcast, Birthright come to mind)

Perhaps they should include a chapter on the Prime Directive. Or at least remind congress of George Washington's recommendation in his farewell address.

And most of Shakespeare is similar. The good guys and the bad guys are obvious just like in fables. But it's a hierarchy. It's useful to teach very young children fables even though they're silly. It's an easy way to introduce concepts around how we treat each other fairly. TNG and Shakespeare are the same way. Just a step on the hierarchy. Yes, as a person reaches adulthood, it's obvious that it's simplified. But you've at least seen examples in art of what might be worth aspiring to in life when young. It's why we've been telling each other hero's journey stories since Homer. What are the alternatives? Examples of self-interest and power grabs with no consequences? To a young person that can be rapidly demoralizing.

Totally agree on the 45 minute window limitation though. That's why I've always liked DS9 where they took what could have been one episode about a culture and conflict and made it 7 seasons.

Darmok especially for our polarized time. ED Hirsch argued in "How to Educate a Citizen" that the lack of teaching core knowledge in American schools robs its citizens of a shared language to use to communicate. Troi uses "Juliet on her balcony" as an example in the episode, but today I'm not even sure how many people would know even that reference.

And your comment illustrates the point. We've never met but I can relate to you with just the name of an episode because I know the large ideas you're expressing in 3-4 words: I've thought of Picard's speech in the Drumhead often in recent years. Whenever I catch myself having life regrets, Tapestry comes to mind. The Measure of a Man... maybe not relevant for today's AI, but one day when it is, I hope that generation has watched it.

The title didn't start with "Only"

Yes, and I think that unfortunately with the latest "Picard" series, it shows that writers were the unsung heroes of TNG. At the same time, the actors make us believe the story. They get most of the popular credit of course and the writers should be acknowledged more (and even brought back as mentors... can we get an inspiring vision of Trek this century?), but had I been born in a different time and place and fortunate enough to land a writing job on TNG, I would be proud of what the whole team accomplished in their hour upon the stage.

In part, yes of course. One thing that I respect a lot about Roddenberry was that when Isaac Asimov gave Star Trek a "bad review" publicly, he reached out and asked for feedback. They ended up becoming friends and Asimov helped advise him on the character development of Kirk and Spock's friendship that became central to the original series.

But, if you watch the first season of TNG, it feels like there is a turning point where Patrick Stewart starts taking the role seriously (Symbiosis) and understands that he's depicting Starfleet as an institution and the restrictions (the prime directive) that institutions must enforce. The fellow actors also seem to take the series more seriously after that episode while before it felt campy.

It's clear he brought a gravitas to the role that inspired a team of young/new actors around him. As he later joked in Making it So, he once took things too seriously on set yelling "We're not here to have fun!" It became more than a job/role to him and in doing so he and the other actors inspired a science-inclined subset of a generation and brought Roddenberry's utopia vision to life.

Would you have said the same thing in Shakespeare's time?

Congrats on the launch! I'm curious if you're familiar with ED Hirsch's work and if so how you see a "core knowledge" curriculum fitting into AI-enabled tutoring. Your landing page suggests you might be falling into traditional anti-patterns for strengthening reading skills like "finding the main idea" and "close reading" of the text (your ai tutor animation instructs a student to look closely for the answer). These patterns are commonly used in American education and have largely been discredited. They persist due to outdated learning theory taught in American educational schools and are likely responsible for our falling reading scores. I'm bringing this up because my hope is that any ed tech tool regardless of whether it uses AI would start with the right foundational theory.