Science and Reason have solved all the problems we currently have. Funnily enough, how they managed to do that is never really explained, we also rarely see earth.
Without tangent-ing off into uber nerd territory, some of the series hint at a sort of corruption within the system on earth.
There are also colonists who show up as plot devices so that alien species can threaten to evict them, bully them, etc, but why the fuck would people really go and basically opt out of the system, especially one which removes all downsides and lets one live as they please, to irk out an existence on an alien planet as subsistence farmers?
Deep space nine and the Marquis are probably the most ”famous” example.
Deep space nine also had a storyline about earth being infiltrated by shape shifting aliens, so it demonstrated that there certainly was something rotten in the hierarchy.
There are also sinister elements like the section 31 secret spy operations who clearly get up to heinous shit.
Sure that might be to keep hostile aliens in check, but why keep it a secret from the key military officers and space exploration agencies?
I realize the CIA don’t share everything they get up to with todays space force, but the space force are obviously aware of the CIA.
As for how they got to post scarcity, I think it is mostly hand waved away by the transportation/replication technology and implying that the crystals they power the space ships with are near limitless in power. Of course these are not flawless when the plot requires it.
Hence why discovery ended up being a pretty good idea with a load of potential, but they were more concerned with woking it the fuck up with faggot and non binary characters everywhere.
Discovery had the main characters go forwards in time to a period in which the whole system had collapsed and they were tasked with tracking remnants of starfleet.
They pretty much reset it quickly though, figuring out the cause and fixing the problems within half a season.
Anyway! Yes, sci fi is often a religion or similar to those who see their atheist position as a certification of intelligence, without really understanding sci fi or how being an atheist through reason actually works.
Star Trek was likely an accessible introduction to science “based” sci fi, rather than space fantasy like Star Wars and Dune, to a lot of demi and midwits.
Unfortunately Star Trek is much more space fantasy than these midwits realize because they have no clue about the technobabble, thinking it is probably real.
Fatrick is very much this. With the additional pathetic elements of thinking that marvel movies are somehow profound and generation defining.
He lacks the understanding that real hard sci fi is what the super smart atheists and science people like. Stuff that might be “boring”, but are much more based around actual research and theoretical physics and biology as to how space travel, life on other planets, and humans in these situations would experience life.
Plus he is fat. Even if commercial space flights or transportation became a reality in his life time he would have to be banned from either due to the sudden change in the earth’s overall weight may cause untold disasters due to its effect on the orbit.
