I think this was saying the Borg were Islam.

way to ruin my joke.

I'm still surprised that Rodenberry managed to pull that off, on TV in the USA with no repercussions whatsoever.

They weren't really communists, though; there were plenty of episodes where commerce occurred, peoples' pay was discussed (if only in passing), and so on.

What "Star Trek" really was, was the United States (or rather its self-image) translated into space. Your culture is stupid? We'll tell you how to fix it. Rampaging hordes from another part of the galaxy? We can whup them in a fight, and we will expose them as cowards too. Black chick on the bridge? ... Okay, well, she doesn't actually do that much, and she doesn't give anyone orders, so let's just ignore her and move on.

Actually, it was closer to an atheistic/scientific meritocracy.\, at least as I've heard it explained. I never was clear on pay of earth government, but then again, I only watched TNG as a kid.

Federation = America
Vulcan = Japan
Romulan = China
Klingon = Russia
Ferengi = Arabs
Cardassians/Bajoran = Jews/Palestine or Palestine/Jews
Andorians = Germans maybe?
Tellarites = Canadian

They had no currency in the Federation. You pick a job based on what you're good at and what you like, since the invention of replicators everyone can have whatever stuff they need so the accumulation of possessions became absurd. This is basically the communist utopia, the abolition of currency and class.

Way to repeat myself in my own post there, but hey you get the just of it.

Good lord, I have enough beard already and it's going to grow three sizes today:

- While money does not seem to be an issue within Star Fleet itself, traders exist, and Star Fleet members sometimes have to buy things. This is most visible on DS9, where there was an entire promenade of merchants who dealt with money, and Star Fleet officers who never once claimed to have infinite funds to spend or gamble.

- Vulcans, Romulans, and Klingons work better as "Greek philosophers", "Roman soldiers", and "Mongol warriors". I'm not saying there is any historical context in which the three would ever meet, particularly in their interactions with America.

- Cardassians = Nazis, Bajorans = Jews. The equivalence doesn't work exactly in that the Jews didn't overthrow the Nazis and reclaim their country, but it works as a soulless military machine vs. a culture defined and held together by TRADITION! (If you want Palestine, that'd be the Skrreeans, kept out of their promised land by the Bajorans. They appeared in one episode.)

- Ferengi = American capitalism gone wild. That really was the original intent, but as with everything else on TNG's first season, it was executed so poorly that you'd never figure it out on its own merits.

- Pakled = me for thinking way too hard about this.

See, but Trek in the first 3 of its 5 incarnations was a reflection of the era it was created in (Voyager was just fluff and Enterprise tried to reflect our times, but it sucked a moose dick).

So the Federation was obviously America/Europe.
The Vulcans were Japanese because they were our allies with pointy features.
The Romulans were Chinese because they looked like the Vulcans, but were our enemy.
The Klingons were Russian because they were gruff, utilitarian and militaristic and they were also allies with the Romulans.

By TNG, we were allies with the Klingons (The cold was was over). The Romulans were not really enemies any more so much as an ever present nuisance (China was still communist, but their biggest ally, USSR was out of the picture. And the Vulcans were pretty much the same.

this

Fart noise of contempt for Islamicism!!