Counting the Animated Series, Voyager is the fifth series in the Star Trek franchise. The crew of the starship Voyager have been thrown a distance that should take them at least 70 years to return home from. Like the other Star Trek series before and since, Voyager explores the human condition and its own unique perspectives on life through the metaphor and allegory of extraterrestrial worlds and science that is sometimes more like magic than real life.
While almost every series in the franchise has addressed fascism in some way, Voyager has done so more times than even dedicated fans may realize.
This essay and the next will focus on the importance of remembering the horrors of fascism in order to fight fascism. I may revisit other Voyager episodes for other themes in the future.
This is a continuation of the series Using Fiction to Talk About Fascism. It's not a full-fledged entry. Just a sidebar but a crucial one. Fascism has an idyllic view of a past that doesn't exist. Those who purport to support democracy can be guilty of the same with respect to the more recent past.
If we're going to build a better world, we can't ignore how bad things were before they were torn apart by authoritarians.
Moral Orel is a (mostly) stop-motion animation show based on the adventures of Orel Puppington in his small town, Moralton, in the fictional state of Statesota.
If this show had been released on 2016, 2020, or 2024, it would have been hailed as visionary, prophetic, and a biting satire of Evangelical Christianity and Christian Nationalism. It was released between 2005 and 2008. In hindsight, it's not so much visionary and prophetic as it is a dark view of a future we haven't managed to avoid.
It has a lot to teach us in 2024 that we could have learned sooner.