Featured Essays Star Trek: Strange New Worlds To the Stars, Through Hardship: Strange New Worlds and Uncovering Past Trauma Great science fiction can reveal our deepest wounds, and start us on the path to healing. By Jerome Stueart | Published on June 1, 2026 Credit: Paramount+ Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Paramount+ Three years ago, when Season 2, Episode 2 of Strange New Worlds dropped, my partner and I got cozy in bed to watch a great episode together, “Ad Astra Per Aspera.” Star Trek series had been part of our long-distance relationship shared from Ohio to Tennessee. We’d watch. We’d discuss. Sometimes two or three episodes a week. Once a month, we got to watch together while we were in the same place. So, that night we were in great spirits. But halfway through the episode, everything changed. Suddenly I was crying uncontrollably, wailing, leaning over the bed, messy sobs barely able to catch my breath. “What’s happening?” my partner asked. “I’m here. Talk to me.” “I don’t know.” It felt like the crying was forcing itself out of me. All I could think was something in the episode had triggered some past emotional trauma, bringing it bellowing up to the surface. But I didn’t know why, and I didn’t know what part of the episode had caused it. But now I had to deal with all of this pain that I hadn’t been aware of… Not a great promo for watching Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, is it? Star Trek! Relive Trauma! Come Messy-Cry with Us! But maybe this is a perfect promo for good stories, good science fiction, fantasy, fiction, nonfiction, poems, memoir, mythology—writing that can help heal us. Good stories yank to the surface the truths and emotions we need to see, whether we like it or not. People write stories to make us feel something. Joy, love, fear, sorrow, including pain that we forgot about, that needs to come out. But that night I went on a mission to figure out what aspect of the episode had triggered me and why. And why, maybe, I needed to be triggered, to begin to fully heal. “Ad Astra Per Aspera” is a courtroom drama featuring Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) at her court marital. Courtroom drama episodes of Star Trek aren’t uncommon, the most famous perhaps being “The Measure of a Man” (TNG, S2, E9) where Data and his personal rights are put on trial, or Spock’s court martial two-part episode in Star Trek: The Original Series, “The Menagerie.” Picard, Worf, Riker, Tom Paris—so many trials to prove the innocence of our hero, in each case. Outside of the exoneration of a major cast member, these kinds of episodes are ways to explore deeper issues of identity or philosophical questions of power, morality, or other societal issues—especially determining questions of what is morally right and wrong. In the process, these episodes often put Starfleet under the microscope too. Starfleet resists change. While Starfleet, as an organization, is presented as progressive, they tend to act in very conservative ways. They seek preservation of what is rather than seeking to evolve or change in step with new discoveries, new situations. It’s become something of a joke on Star Trek that the Prime Directive is the real red shirt of every episode. Starfleet uses Captain’s discretion to break that Prime Directive again and again because, on the surface, non-interference and not influencing a culture beyond what it is ready for is a good and worthy principle, but it also means that a lot of charity and genuine altruism falls outside the purview of the Prime Directive. This is why Trek’s captains shine in their episodes for breaking that rule—because we know empathy is more important than law. But for the most part, Starfleet doesn’t acknowledge the need to supplement or alter or caveat the Prime Directive to allow for kindness; they prefer to just forgive the individual captains on a case-by-case basis. Overall, we have rarely seen Starfleet embrace real change. But they are subject to critique, occasionally. We see them as flawed, from time to time. For example, Section 31 is a horrible growth on the body of Starfleet, but the organization turns a blind eye, again, allowing change to happen under someone else’s orders. Nothing that would sully the image of the Perfect Starfleet. In this episode of Strange New Worlds, it’s clear that Starfleet is flawed. In the story the weight of the metaphor of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” which never looked good on the US when it was official military policy, looks bad on Starfleet too. I saw the metaphor plainly, and I knew that it wasn’t the part that triggered me. I’d seen other shows reflect and critique this harmful policy targeting LGBTQ service members in the military. It is ironic that when the episode aired, DADT was gone (struck down under Obama in 2010), but while writing this essay, the Trump Administration renewed part of it again, starting to actively remove trans people from military service again. The episode is still painfully relevant. In the plot, Starfleet’s restrictions against people with genetic modification come into play. As soon as Una Chin-Riley is outed as Illyrian—a race of people who modify their DNA to adapt to new planets to allow them to survive in harsh conditions (and thereby making it more difficult for others to hurt them)—she conjures up the shadow of Khan Noonien-Singh in the minds of those around her (more strongly even than the woman she serves with, La’An Noonien-Singh, a direct descendant of Khan). She becomes not only the enemy but re-ignites the fear that people like her will take over, and that “normal” or “regular” humans will be subjugated to the will of “superhumans,” as they were during the Eugenics Wars. All of this understandable, on some level. The Eugenics Wars in the words of Captain Christopher Pike “ended in eradication of 600,000 species of animals and plants, and 30% of Earth’s population. Global suicide….” Okay. We can all agree that the beliefs and practices we associate with eugenics are bad, even monstrous and immoral, but in the case of Illyrians, genetic modification is cultural and it is necessary to adapt to the planets they live on. As such, they should be exempt from such a draconian interpretation of the law. But they aren’t. No one knew that Una Chin-Riley was Illyrian until she was outed. The episode sets up a mystery, asking who would do this to her. We find out later, but for now I want to focus on what it means for a decorated, exemplary Starfleet Officer to be outed as Illyrian. She becomes the enemy. She embodies Starfleet’s greatest fear. In the minds of those who would condemn her, they had let into their ranks someone who could destroy them. None of her past good behavior, heroic deeds, Starfleet medals or decorations could survive the bonfire they quickly gave her reputation. None of it mattered enough to save her. She is offered a deal—admit to lying on her application and they will give her a dishonorable discharge. She does not take the deal. She will not erase who she is or the spotless service record she has built. Starfleet raises the charges to sedition (20 years in a penal colony), and they start going after her allies, willing to destroy the career of Captain Pike and of anyone else who might have known she was Illyrian. The enemy and anyone who might have been affected by her ideology has to be eliminated from the body of Starfleet. I was familiar with that tactic. I had come out 14 years ago in a small Yukon city in Canada. In 2009, during Easter Week, compelled to share my life with my church, I came out to them—not all at once, but family by family, over dinners and coffees, and a lot of tears. I didn’t want it to be a big deal, and I wanted to show them that I loved them individually. This was a private part of myself I was making public, so it felt right to not make a huge public announcement behind a microphone in church some Sunday, but to talk to someone on their couch, hold their hands, and share something I was scared but also happy now to tell them. I had decided that I wouldn’t hide anymore. I’d only been hiding it for a few years because, ironically, I didn’t know I was gay till I was 34 myself. That’s another story, but sometimes being raised Christian can lead to hiding who you are inside a shell of who you should be. I also grew up in the ’70s and ’80s where LGBTQ media representation was so scarce (and what little you did see was negative) that I just didn’t know I was gay for 34 years. I just thought I was broken. I wrote about that in another essay, “When We’re Not There, We’re Not Here.” Discovering I was gay was such a freeing experience. I made sense! Everything made sense. It was a joyful moment. But I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just doing what I wanted (because that’s the first accusation you may get). I did my own theological research and inner work—to make sure I knew what I was doing. In 2009, five years later, during that Easter Week, I felt like God was saying to me: you need to come out. So I did. I became the enemy immediately. Because like Una Chin-Riley, I embodied a deep-rooted fear of the evangelical Christian church. And like Starfleet, the evangelical wing of the Christian church does not change. It resists change out of fear. My own pastor, when I asked him to consider the possibility of a different interpretation of a few select verses, told me that if the church were wrong about those verses, “the rest of the Bible would fall like dominoes.” That’s a huge admission, Pastor. That’s a structure built on fear, not on love. I was a beloved member of that church, serving as the Deacon of Worship, someone who gave fun Children’s Sermons with a dog puppet, who sang in the choir, and by the end of that Easter Week, 2009, I had been stripped of my position, told that I was never to work with the youth or children again, and forbidden to speak in front of the church. I was denied a forum, a Q&A session, anything. And I wasn’t allowed to write something explaining what had happened in the church newsletter. I was of course allowed to talk to anyone I wanted to personally. Just as Starfleet offered Una a deal, I too was offered a deal. Take a vow of lifelong chastity. Never, ever date. Then, possibly, they would allow me to serve in the church. I couldn’t do that. I had purposely told them so that I could share my life with them. I wanted them to know. I told them no. Because I wanted to have a chance to talk with people in the church, I initially accepted the other restrictions and stayed in my church. My goal was to be the queer person they knew who could explain why the church policies needed to be revisited. I wasn’t in rebellion. I hadn’t been “seduced” or tricked or confused. We just disagreed on the interpretation of a few verses, verses that told me I was loved. Some called me the Devil; some refused to come to church until I was gone. I stayed anyway. I sat in that church for a year and a half, doing everything I could to help them. I was determined. I was convinced I could love and explain my way back to them. And by God, they did everything they knew to save me, too. We were all doomed to love each other to death. Or at least that’s the narrative I wanted to believe for a long time; the one where they had good intentions. But the truth was that we were not doing equal things. I was trying to tell them I was still worthy of love. But they saw me as the enemy. The same way a group of humans in a zombie film might turn on someone who’s been bitten. No matter how intellectually I argued, theologically I approached them, emotionally and empathetically appealed to them, in their minds, I had been bitten. I was changed. I eventually lost that ideological fight. Coming out cost me my relationship with hundreds of people I loved in a church I was devoted to, but I had dealt with that years ago. I’d been through therapy to let go of that pain. I’d found support in other churches, in other friends. I now had a wonderful partner. I am out and proud and producing art and writing that talks openly about being gay. I mean, how much more healed can I be? That night I was surprised and embarrassed at myself. It was all so messy. I shouldn’t have been embarrassed. Crying is normal; heaving and wailing is extreme, but still understandable. We wail when we are grieving. We wail at injustice. Wailing signals pain that needs to be heard. I must have been grieving something. It was pain I needed to see, to recognize. And anger. I was angry. That something buried could reach up and grab me like that. But also angry at the church that tried to make me doubt my faith, my belief in God, doubt myself and my own sexuality. I was angry that it could still hurt me. Why isn’t the pain gone? Or at least dulled, for God’s sake… So who outed Una to Starfleet? The twist in the episode is Una’s admission that she had outed herself, and that she had done this in good faith, trusting that she would be safe among friends—even safe with Starfleet. And that was the trigger, for me. Watching the episode a second time, I fell to pieces at the same moment. Even writing it down now, I am welling up with tears. I had trusted the people I loved with the deepest part of me—people whom I too, like Una, had watched care for others so well, within an organization that did so much good in the world. I trusted them to care about me when I told them who I was. She’d put her trust in Starfleet, just as I had put mine in my church. I believed so strongly that I would be loved. We talked about Jesus every week, venerating his caring for the outcasts from society, the poor, the mistreated. We said again and again that this was our goal. “Come as you are,” we said in our marketing. “All are loved and accepted.” We raised money for people struggling in our community and abroad. Both Starfleet and the church turned on us immediately, withdrawing their favor, their love. But the thing they had to work hardest to make me doubt was, in the end, my unbreakable belief in them, and their ability to change. I believed so hard in our friendship, in the strength of our relationship, that I wasn’t about to let them go without fighting for them. I believed in our love. But I lost that fight a long time ago. I lost their love. I lost them. I had nothing to prepare me for the rejection I felt because I just didn’t see it coming. That disconnect between what was expected and what really happened—that huge gap of expectation—blindsided both Una and me. And even though I’d talked through that time in the North with counselors, moved into a more several more welcoming churches, had even moved out of the whole country eventually, and found a partner that I loved, the trauma stayed with me and came welling up again in full force that night, as if I had never released it before. Both Una and I had trusted that the people who cared about us would not reject us—and neither of us were prepared for the sudden anger and swift consequences of simply revealing who we were. Some might call us naive, but weren’t we both deeply involved in a charitable organization built on acceptance and tolerance, who prided themselves on having a moral conscience? An organization committed to doing good in the universe. So, we trusted we were safe. We did the right thing. And we never knew what hit us. While I had lived through the consequences, and held onto my beliefs, until that night I hadn’t realized that my trust and safety had been so violated, and I had never comforted the part of me that had been attacked by their “good intentions.” It took seeing a fictional representation on Trek to understand new interpretations of old trauma, and to begin to heal what I’d left behind. Star Trek has never been afraid of addressing real world problems. The critics who want Star Trek to stop being topical haven’t really seen and understood Star Trek. Addressing the wounds of our society is woven into the very fabric of its being, its essence. Starfleet is supposed to represent our better self, but their depiction frequently indicates places where we must be vigilant and on guard, not to settle for the Veneer of Good, the Veneer of Morality. The sparkly righteousness of Starfleet can get in the way of the good that it can do. As it nearly did in the trial of Una Chin-Riley. Starfleet doesn’t change. Meera, Una’s lawyer, gets Starfleet to enact a loophole for Una alone. This allows Starfleet to keep its fear and restrictions on allowing Illyrians into the Federation in place, but also show off its sparkly righteousness and graciousness in allowing ONE Illyrian in through asylum. They made an exception. My church would not make an exception. I was expendable because the fear of God, the fear of Hell, damnation, is stronger than love, sometimes. Some churches, and some individuals, won’t allow empathy into the equation—even though that is the heart of Christian faith. Starfleet, I sometimes feel, is also afraid of empathy. Empathy will weaken the Federation. Empathy is for the Captains. Something to be excused, not encouraged. Empathy seems to be in short supply among our country’s leaders right now. And so we have stories that reflect that desperate need for empathy. I think by the end of this episode, we’ve experienced our own empathy for Una’s story while Starfleet has been confronted by their lack of it. While they get to save face and come out looking good in the end, I think viewers will recognize that Starfleet got off lightly, without having to change, or to question their policies, practices, or beliefs. Science Fiction has had many great authors over the years who have been brave enough to poke at our wounds and invite us to heal ourselves. Any list I can think of would seem so reductive and paltry—science fiction, like Star Trek, has always been dedicated to imaging better futures, to explore and examine social issues in a way that speaks truth to power. We must still confront Starfleet, hold it accountable. We need those stories. Good stories OPEN wounds that need to be more fully healed. We often have to heal them on our own. Our personal wounds. Our societal wounds. Catharsis gets us only so far. We cry, release pain, but the wound has to be dressed and cared for, and even writing this essay can’t make it go away, something I’d hoped: I was able to find the trigger, but I wasn’t able to stop the pain that comes when I touch it. I told my partner that I felt like I was failing this simple exercise. He said that maybe failing is the point of this essay. That the pain of being rejected for who you are, especially from a place and a people who have shown only love to you and others for years, is a wound that is slow to heal. And we can go through therapy and move to another place, find a better church, live openly and proud, create art and writing, and compose essays about how this wound needs to be healed, but the wound will heal in its own time. And that’s okay for now. I’m not going through this alone, though. As Neera tried to argue, Una is one Illyrian on trial. But the rest of Illyria—millions of people—will never get to have this grace that Una is allowed, this asylum. There are millions of LGBTQ-identifying people in the world facing various levels of hate, danger, and persecution. They need an advocate. Someone to take their side, to argue for them, to protect them. This episode is about finding that advocate, those allies. Yes, it is Una’s trial. But the search for an advocate makes up the first third of this episode; and the attempt to strip Una of her allies (and punish them) is another third of this episode. Allies and advocates. That’s the message we can take as a call to action for ourselves, because standing up for each other increases our chances at group survival. We’re seeing that large-scale group action pushes hate back and protects us and our neighbors. As Neera learned, helping one person helps the overall cause. For those in power like Starfleet, it is a call to do better. Unfortunately, here in the U.S., Evangelical Christianity in the form of Christian Nationalism influences laws and governance. And if you live in rural areas, there is no separation at all between Christianity and civil government. So, this episode stands as a call for powerful, empathetic change. Starfleet resists that change so desperately in this episode. They don’t believe they’ve made a mistake. Can we please have leaders who learn from mistakes? Resilience through adaptation? Starfleet needs more of that. Oh, wait, that’s the Illyrians in a nutshell. Starfleet needs to be more Illyrian, able to adapt to new situations better, faster, to pivot when faced with new truths. All that exploring strange new worlds has to change us, doesn’t it? Learning about new cultures, new civilizations helps us all evolve and change for the better, right? We can’t just cling to our old beliefs in the face of new information. Maybe evangelical Christianity needs to be more flexible, more adaptable, shifting more easily as society’s understanding about people, gender, sexuality, psychology changes. They were never meant to hold people in a 2000-year time bubble. Queer people, immigrants, women making decisions—these are no threat to them. They should protect instead the everlasting truths of that book, the commands to help the poor, to bring in the outcast, to love everyone. Many denominations of Christianity live that better truth right now. Many other faiths, religions, other spiritual practices, are allies for LGBTQ people, the poor, the outcasts, the immigrants. They just aren’t the ones in power. Evangelical Christianity and Starfleet need to be able to admit that they’ve been wrong. More than that, we need to hold them accountable for the wrong and hurtful ideologies they spread, and not allow them to pivot to claim martyrdom and victimhood and claims that they are being “persecuted because of their faith.” Starfleet is a beautiful ideal; something we need to build. Let’s do it. But let’s build in breathing room to grow, to be wrong, to change. I want to be part of an organization that grows and evolves. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to be capable of learning, to be open to change. This is where the episode really shines: Neera argues that when Una turned herself in, when she outed herself, “she believed in the best of Starfleet, and through it she could find salvation from the hardships and danger of her everyday life. She fled persecution and within Starfleet, she sought safety.” Una reminds Starfleet of who they CAN be. We can remind our country, our churches, our neighbors of who they can be. I am not against Starfleet, or against the church. I am hoping, like Una, to remind them of who and what they were meant to be. That’s the magic and importance of good storytelling too—to remind us of who we can be if we can make necessary changes, or who we might become if we don’t. Every episode, every story, every novel, pushes the collective along towards becoming better humans, one Una at a time. These are the stars that can save us. And we can bring those stars into being. Three years ago, this episode of Star Trek Strange New Worlds started a journey that sent me back to the wound and what happened long ago. Over the last year, I was trying to write another essay but hit the same emotional roadblocks I found in writing this smaller one. I pivoted to making illustrations for it instead. That helped the healing process too. The essay focuses on how I stayed strong during the year and a half inside the church that no longer wanted me. Something magical happened inside the hymns I was singing, during that time. I found the word bear resonating differently for me than ever before because I was a gay man who identified with the “bear community” (fluffier men). Singing the word bear reminded me that God was with me even in the valley of the shadow of despair. Bear appears thousands of times in the Baptist Hymnal because we bear one another’s burdens, we bear witness, we bear pain and joy. And in this way, the bears were there for me, being strong, so that I could be stronger. I finished 10 illustrations and now I will write the bigger essay about them. Maybe this is how I heal, apparently. One essay, one illustration, at a time. Art by Jerome Stueart This summer, my painting, “Coming Out at the Last Supper,” has been included in an exhibition at L’Antiquaille in Lyon, France, as part of the biennial exhibition, “Variations on the Last Supper,” put on by the Archdiocese of Lyon. It is a moment for the church to look at a queer Christian take on the Last Supper, of what it means to come out, and what it costs people who are rejected. I know this is the continuation of dialogue and healing for many of us, and I am grateful to be a part of it.[end-mark] The post To the Stars, Through Hardship: <i>Strange New Worlds</i> and Uncovering Past Trauma appeared first on Reactor.