Star Trek has never been shy about tackling social issues, and its conscience has been one of the things that set it apart from other science fiction shows of the era. Its far-flung setting and far-future timeline let them talk about all manner of hot-button topics, cloaked in comparatively harmless guises to help it all go down a little more smoothly. The classic Star Trek: The Original Series Season 3 episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” used the vagaries between two alien species to act as a stand-in for racism, is a telling example. That can be a two-edged sword, however. While Star Trek is excellent at injecting social commentary into its fiction, it very rarely addresses those issues directly.
When Star Trek does directly tackle social issues (like the environmental message in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home), it takes care to present them in a pleasant light instead of confronting the darker consequences. That’s not strictly a criticism, and the franchise has done a lot of good by making its messages more palatable for a wider audience. It does, however, make one of its most important entries stand out all the more, precisely because it confronts racism head-on rather than hiding it behind fantasy. Star Trek: Deep Space NineSeason 6, Episode 13, “Far Beyond the Stars” examines racism not as some far-off problem, but something that saturates everyday life in the here and now. LeVar Burton, who played Lt. Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation, posted copious praise for the episode on Twitter. It’s well-worth rediscovery, even for those who are familiar with it.
‘Far Beyond The Stars’ Looks at Racism in America
“Far Beyond the Stars” is conceptually daring, above the nature of the story. Captain Benjamin Sisko begins to experience a recurring vision (presumably sent by the Prophets, with whom he shares a unique connection), in which he lives an entirely different life. Suddenly, he’s “Benny Russell,” a science-fiction writer living in 1950s New York. The other people on the station appear in different roles as well. Most of them are writers working with Benny at Incredible Tales magazine. Odo becomes their editor, Douglas Pabst, while Sisko’s son Jake is an unrelated street kid named Jimmy, to whom Benny takes a liking.
Series
Title
Season
Episode
Written by
Directed by
Original Air Date
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
“Far Beyond the Stars”
6
13
Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler
Avery Brooks
February 9, 1998
Perhaps most disturbingly, Deep Space Nine’s biggest recurring villains — Gul Dukat and Weyoun — are recast as a pair of racist police officers who patrol the neighborhood. One day, Benny spots a picture of Deep Space 9, drawn by the magazine’s staff artist, and is inspired to write a story about it. He calls it “Deep Space Nine” — about the Black captain of a space station — and it’s suggested that it actually depicts some of Sisko’s adventures in the 24th Century. The magazine refuses to publish it, claiming that no one wants to read a story about a Black man in space. He continues to write more of them, however, and Pabst agrees to publish the original if Benny frames it as just a dream.
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Despite the compromise, Benny is happy at the news, only to have his triumph shattered when the two cops shoot Jimmy dead. When he protests, they beat him to within an inch of his life, but it gets worse. When he returns to work after getting out of the hospital, he learns that the publisher has destroyed the entire month’s print run rather than publish a story featuring a Black hero. He has been fired, which prompts an emotional breakdown in which he fiercely asserts the validity of his vision. He ends up locked in a psychiatric facility, but even there, he commits to continuing to write his stories. Sisko awakens from the vision back on Deep Space 9 in the 24th Century, and wonders if Benny isn’t out there somewhere, writing about him in one of his stories.
‘Far Beyond The Stars’ Examines Racism’s Impact on Sci-Fi
Avery Brooks, who plays Captain Sisko, directed “Far Beyond the Stars,” and it remains very much a personal statement by the artist. According to Terry Erdmann and Paul Block’s reference manual The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, Brooks had experienced racism of a similar nature, and was chosen to direct for the insight he brought to the topic. The episode earned copious praise for the way it focuses on the issue directly instead of masking it behind a sci-fi metaphor. It also declines to offer easy solutions — another point that Star Trek tends to avoid in favor of pleasant fictions.
Most importantly, it reveals racism as a systemic condition, rather than the malign efforts of a few bad apples. Spiking Benny’s story is a part of the same injustice that gets Jimmy killed, and it doesn’t end with the heroes miraculously solving the problem. Instead, it asks viewers to acknowledge the truth of what they see and address it in any way they can. Beyond that, however, “Far Beyond the Stars” examines the way systemic racism affected the history of science fiction itself, and — by extension — the development of Star Trek. Many of the fictional writers at Incredible Tales are based on real science fiction writers at the time.
Colm Meaney’s Albert Macklin, for example, is loosely patterned on Isaac Asimov, while the married couple of Kay and Julius Eaton (played by Nana Visitor and Alexander Siddig) are based on real-life married writers Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore. Benny’s experience with censorship is based on the case of the novel Nova, written by Black author Samuel R. Delany and featuring a Black protagonist in a far future setting. In 1967, Analog magazine editor John W. Campbell rejected publication — despite claiming to like the novel — because he didn’t think readers would accept a Black hero. The episode reflects Star Trek’s own imperfect history with race relations, despite many of the barriers it broke.
Uhura, for instance, was slated to play a much larger role in the series — effectively serving as third in command behind Mr. Spock — only to have her presence dialed back at the network’s behest. Actor Nichelle Nichols famously considered quitting the show before being convinced to stay by Martin Luther King, Jr. More directly to “Far Beyond the Stars,” Kay Eaton (the fictional writer in the episode) is compelled to publish her works under a gender-neutral name to hide the fact that she’s a woman. The practice was sadly common, and indeed, one of Star Trek’s formative writers — Dorothy Fontana — suffered a similar indignity in her career. To this day, the series credits her as “D.C. Fontana.”
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The effects could be felt in-world as well, and Sisko never forgot the experience. The telltale moment comes a year later in Season 7, Episode 15, “Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang,” which entails the crew helping their holographic friend Vic Fontaine by planning an Ocean’s Eleven-style heist in his 1960s Las Vegas setting. Most of the crew is thrilled to help Vic, except for Sisko. When asked why, he explains that Vic’s version of Vegas whitewashes the real systemic racism present in the city in that era. His girlfriend Kasidy persuades him to participate, as Vic isn’t responsible for the ills Sisko cites, nor are they present in his program. Still, his point remains. The fact that it arrives in the middle of an episode intended as an open lark makes it hit home all the harder.
LeVar Burton’s Praise for “Far Beyond the Stars” Is Timely
Burton belongs to the most positive part of Star Trek’s history of representation. Geordi La Forge is beloved among the Star Trek faithful, and his blindness and signature VISOR made him a representative for the visually impaired as well as only the second Black lead character in the entire franchise. On Nov. 19, 2024, Burton tweeted praise for “Far Beyond the Stars,” calling it one of the best things Star Trek has ever produced:
Wow! Just watched S6 E13 of Deep Space Nine, Far Beyond the Stars. It’s a marvelous tour de force from everyone involved. Simply one of finest episodes of storytelling in the entire Trek canon.
He’s correct, of course. “Far Beyond the Stars” routinely tops “Best Of” lists for both Deep Space Nine, and the franchise as a whole. So many of the issues it discussed are still very much present, unfortunately, and Star Trek continues to address it in big ways and small. Burton’s observation is a reminder of how important that task is, and why “Far Beyond the Stars” continues to matter over a quarter-century after it aired.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is now streaming on Paramount+.
In the vicinity of the liberated planet of Bajor, the Federation space station Deep Space Nine guards the opening of a stable wormhole to the far side of the galaxy.
Release Date January 3, 1993
Cast Avery Brooks , Rene Auberjonois , Alexander Siddig , Terry Farrell , Cirroc Lofton , Colm Meaney
Seasons 7
Number of Episodes 176