I have loved Star Trek my whole life and probably always will. For the last several years however, I haven’t been able to watch a single episode of it without thinking, “Wait! This is the East India Company… in space!”

Here’s the thing. One of the clearest images that will form in your mind when you think about science fiction is that of spaceships containing people. These people are sometimes leaving Earth, sometimes coming towards Earth, and sometimes have nothing to do with Earth. But these are always journeys, and journeys are undertaken with destinations in mind. People in spaceships usually have reasons for being in them and these reasons are a huge part of the plot.

In Star Trek, this reason is stated to be exploration — “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

It sounds benign and progressive, but if we unpack this declaration even a little bit, we run into several problems that stem mostly from the cultural forces behind the idea of “exploration” and “strange new worlds” and “boldly”.

There is a kind of heroism associated with the memory of imperialism. The British Empire is seen, by many even today, as a period of glory and triumph. Such remembrance is held not only among the descendants of the White men who colonized Africa and Asia, but also many who were at the receiving end of their advances. People remember fondly all the things that the British remember themselves as “boldly” doing in “strange new worlds”.