- In 1964 Gene Roddenberry drafted a proposal for the science fiction series which he publicly marketed it as a *Western in outer space—a so-called "Wagon Train to the Stars"—* . He privately told friends that he was modeling it on Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, intending each episode to act on two levels: as a **suspenseful adventure story** and as **a morality tale.** - The conflicts and political dimensions of [[Star Trek]] are allegories of contemporary cultural realities. The Original Series addressed issues of the 1960s, just as later spin-offs have tackled issues of their respective decades. - Issues depicted in the various series include war and peace, the value of personal loyalty, authoritarianism, imperialism, class warfare, economics, racism, religion, human rights, sexism, feminism, and the role of technology, spirituality - Gene Roddenberry stated: "By creating a new world with new rules, I could make statements about sex, religion, Vietnam, politics, and intercontinental missiles. - Roddenberry intended the show to have a progressive political agenda reflective of the emerging counter-culture of the youth movement, though he was not fully forthcoming to the networks about this. He wanted [[Star Trek]] to show what humanity might develop into, if it would learn from the lessons of the past, most specifically by ending violence. - An extreme example is the alien species known as the [[Vulcans]], who had a violent past but learned to control their emotions. Roddenberry also gave [[Star Trek]] an anti-war message and depicted the United Federation of Planets as an ideal, optimistic version of the United Nations. - His efforts were opposed by the network because of concerns over marketability, e.g., they opposed Roddenberry's insistence that Enterprise have a racially diverse crew.[16] - It is an interesting point that there is no "[[money]]" concept in [[Star Trek]]; the future is imagined without any money involved in our day-to-day life. In one of the original series movies, [[Captain Kirk]], [[Dr. McCoy]] and [[Spock]] travel in time to 20th century and are amazed to see that they do not have any money so they cannot even travel to fulfill their purpose.