'Star Trek: Discovery' Is Against Building Trump's Border Wall

Star Trek: Discovery executive producer Alex Kurtzman alluded to Trump's proposed border wall and described how it's antithetical to Star Trek values in a new interview with SFX Magazine.

"Like all the best Trek shows, we're examining how it's a mirror to the world that we live in," Kurtzman told SFX (via TrekMovie). "We live in a world now where we're talking about building walls around ourselves, literally, to keep people out, and I think that's not in keeping with the vision of Star Trek. What are the freedoms that we're giving up in making choices to protect ourselves? How does that chip away at our essential understanding of Starfleet doctrine, and what it means to assume diversity? Why do we need to keep people out?"

ICYMI: NEW: 'Star Trek: Discovery' Cast And Crew On Filling A Leadership Vacuum, Classic Storytelling -- And @shazad Talks About How Tyler Is Like The Hulk #StarTrek #StarTrekDiscovery https://t.co/jurZZPIUIO

— TrekMovie.com (@TrekMovie) January 8, 2019

In Star Trek: Discovery Season 2, the starship Discovery teams up with Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) of the U.S.S. Enterprise to investigate seven red bursts that have appeared spontaneously around the galaxy and may have something to do with a mysterious "Red Angel." The season is meant to examine the contrasting values of faith and. rationality, with Starfleet trying to determine whether the Red Angel intends peace or destruction in its contact with characters, including Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Spock (Ethan Peck).

"The key is to constantly find a way to reinvent, while also always delivering what people expect from the show," Kurtzman told DigitalSpy.

So far, Star Trek: Discovery has embraced a more militant vision of the Federation's future, with a first season following a war against the Klingons, which ended when the Federation places a bomb inside the core of the Klingon homeworld Qo'NoS. But it seems even a Star Trek which spends a whole episode torturing an alien to fuel a spaceship can't embrace Trumpism.

President Trump will give a prime-time TV address on Tuesday night, intended to bolster his case for funding the wall he'd like to build on the U.S.-Mexico border—his condition for ending the partial government shutdown aimed at essential resources like libraries, national parks, WIC and environmental regulators. But the Trump administration has contemplated an even more extreme tactic to secure the $5 billion in funding the president wants, contemplating the declaration of a national emergency. Border crossings are down 75 percent since the year 2000, the AP reports.

We'll find out whether Star Trek: Discovery will rebut Trump's racist immigration policies directly when Season 2's premiere episode "Brother" debuts on CBS All Access on January 17.

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