The people in the image aren’t even members of the Federation… they’re Torathan, it’s explicitly stated, by Chancellor Ake, that the Federation has an agreement with them that would allow Mir to be released to their custody.

The Burn did a lot of crazy things to the Federation, and one of the lessons explicitly stated in the next episodes is that the Academy is back to teach these cadets how to be better. There was some backsliding during the Burn and everyone is trying to get better again.

The Pirate (Nus Braka) given the sentence was a pirate who was killing Starfleet officers. The mother (Anisha Mir) was sentenced to time in a rehab colony with visitation rights. Rehabilitation implying the sentence is not a life long sentence. Both of them were, ultimately, involved with the death of an officer. It wasn’t a “Drumhead” type trial, there was no witch hunting the innocent here: Two people involved with a theft that ended with the death of a Starfleet officer were tried and convicted of crimes; one of them is known to be a member of a dangerous criminal organization.

Picard once left Tim Russ’s character poisoned to die in a Baryon sweep for stealing Trilithium Resin. Star Trek was never super perfect when dramatic effect is involved.

I think it’s extremely disingenuous to equate “bad things happening sometimes” with “dystopia.”

The point of everything you mentioned (except for the police in '09, which you don’t actually seem to have an issue with aside from the fact that they exist?) is that these things can be overcome, which is precisely the opposite of a dystopian setting.

Hey, remember in ‘The Conscience of the King’ when we found out that the governor of a colony massacred half the population because they were experiencing a famine?

Remember ‘The Menagerie’ when we found out you can still get the death penalty in Federation?

Remember how Kirk consigned the populations of two planets, one of which told the Enterprise in no uncertain terms to not visit, to violent war, because he didn’t like the way they were conducting their ongoing conflict in ‘A Taste of Armageddon’?

Remember in ‘A Wolf in the Fold’ where we learned that Starfleet has alliances with less advanced worlds where the population is amenable to being “pleasure planets” for officers on shore leave to engage in sex tourism?

Remember when Kirk used a primitive culture to fight a proxy war with the Klingons in ‘A Private Little War’, and then abandoned them when he got a bit sad?

Remember that a founding member of the Federation, the Tellarites, were willing to keep a planet out of the Federation so they could continue exploiting its rich resources that the locals weren’t able to properly defend on their own, in ‘Journey to Babel’?

Remember ‘Patterns of Force’ where a former Academy instructor and renowned Federation historian introduced Nazism to a pre-warp society, even becoming their Führer?

Remember when we found out in ‘The Cloud Minders’ that an explicitly Federation member world maintains a rigid caste system?

Remember ‘To Short a Season’ where the plot was based around a Federation admiral who had supplied weapons to terrorists as a commander, resulting in a coup where the terrorist leader took control of their planet?

Remember how in ‘The Measure of a Man’, the Federation demanded that a sentient being, a member of Starfleet for 24 years, submit himself to be experimented upon so the Federation could make more of his kind for their own use?

Remember when in ‘The Survivors’’, Picard choose to do nothing to the being who committed complete genocide of a sentient species, claiming there were no laws to fit his crime?

Remember ‘The Offspring’ when an Admiral shows up to take away Data’s child for study, despite the fact that he won his right to live in ‘The Measure of a Man’?

Remember when Worf murdered a candidate for head of a foreign state in ‘Reunion’ and got off with a slap on the wrist?

Remember ‘The Drumhead’ when a respected former Starfleet admiral comes aboard the Enterprise and begins to persecute a crewpoerson based on who his grandfather was, on the basis of the fact that he committed a thoughtcrime, and Worf went along with it?

Remember in ‘Ensign Ro’ how a Starfleet admiral colluded with agents of a fascist states to blame refugees of that fascist’s states occupation of their homeworld for an attack the fascists commited, and to that end ordered a disgraced Starfleet officer to offer weapons to the refugeers?

Remember when Picard ordered the creation of a virus that might have potentially committed genocide against the Borg in ‘I, Borg’?

Remmber in ‘Descent’ how Admiral Nechayev fed picard a bowl of shit for not deploing a virus that might have caused the genocide of the Borg?

Remember ‘The Pegasus’ where we learned that an admiral was trying to recover a lost Starfleet ship that could cloak, in blatant violation of their treaty with another galactic power?

Remember how in ‘Journey’s End’ the Enterprise is tasked with the forced relocation of Federation citizens to appease a fascist state, and then when those citizens refuse to be relocated, the Federation chooses to abandon them?

Remember how Admiral Nechayev ordered the Enterprise to aid a fascist state in rooting out the freedom fighters opposing their occupation of territory that used to belong to the Federation?

Remember ‘Captain Pursuit’ where Sisko is willing to release a sentient being who is being hunted for sport to his hunters?

Remember how often Sisko was opposed to the actions of freedom fighters working against the fascist state occupying their homes, beginning with ‘The Maquis’?

Remember ‘Homefront’ and ‘Paradise Lost’ when the Federation implemented martial law on Earth, including mandatory random blood screening of its citizens?

Remember when terrorist organization tried to implement their conservative ideals on a resort planet, and Worf joined them, and then saw no repercussions for doing so in ‘Let He Who is Without Sin…’?

Remember in ‘For the Uniform’ how Sisko used biological weapons against freedom fighters resisting a fascist occupation of their homes?

Remember how in ‘Inquistion’ we learned about Section 31, an secret organization within Starfleet intelligence that exists to carry out Starfleet’s dirty business?

Remember when Sisko used a former intelligence operative from a fascist state to trick a different fascist state into joining a war effort in, ‘In the Pale Moonlight’?

Remember ‘The Seige of AR-558’ where we see Starfleet officers committing war crimes, and collecting trophies off the bodies of fallen enemies soldiers?

Remember how in ‘When it Rains…’ we learned that Section 31 infected Odo with a biological weapon to kill the Changelings, and in ‘Extreme Measures’ that the Federation Council refused to provide a cure, even after one had been created?

Remember when Worf assissinated a foreign head of state in ‘Tacking Into the Wind’ at Sisko’s implied behest, and faced no consequences for doing so?

Remember how Janeway murdered a being, who had commited no crime and had been explicitly stated as being helpful to the crew, as he begged for his life in ‘Tuvix’?

Remember in ‘Nothing Human’ when we learned that the Voyager database includes the works and psychological profile a fascist scisentist whose research involved committing atrocities on the population of a planet his people had occupied and forced into labour?

Remember when Tom Paris was senstanced to solitary confinement on the bridge by Janeay, an act that is currently considered cruel and unusual punishment, in ‘Thirty Days’?

Remember ‘Equinox’ where we learn a Starfleet crew has been knowingly capturing and murdering sentient lifeforms to fuel their ship?

Remember how in ‘Shadows of P’Jem’ we found out that the Vulcans maintained a long range listening outpost under a site they declared sacred to their culture?

Remember in ‘Cogenitor’ when Archer refused to grant asylum to an alien being who was kept in sexual slavery?

Remember when Archer tortures someone for information in ‘Anomaly’?

Remember in ‘Damage’ when Archer orders the NX-01 crew to board an alien ship and steal vital components of their warp drive, leaving those beings stranded in a hostile and dangerous region of space?

Remember ‘Kir’Shara’ where we saw Shran torture Soval to assess the truth of informaiton he was being given?

Remember in ‘Bound’ how Archer accepted a gift of three slaves?

Remember ‘Star Trek: Insurrection’ where the Federation was allied with a state that keeps slaves, and agreed to force relocate a population so they could gain access to the resources of that people’s planet?

Those thugs beating up Caleb Mir are not Federation. They work for the something or other empire. The judge who sentenced Caleb’s mum resigned from Starfleet the next day, saying it was the worst mistake of her career and she can no longer work for an organisation that expects her to do things like that. 20 years later, Starfleet admits she was right, and offers her a job as Chancellor at Starfleet Academy, teaching the next generation to be better than the last one.

Tbh Starfleet Academy makes a U turn on that decision the minute after, explaining that because of the war/burn they were jerks but they regret it and try to make amends bla bla bla.

Academy gave me this utopia feeling, but in 2026 it made me more depressed than hopeful as I finally realized that I will never find a Starfleet Academy on our world, aka a bunch of peoples working together to make humanity better whatever if their skin is pink or they believe in the giant flying spaghetti monster.

I stopped watching Discovery after the first episode

watching the first 10 minutes of Starfleet Academy makes me want to bury the whole franchise

These are shows that historically have taken a couple of seasons to grow their beard, and you’re judging them on (parts of) their pilots? Maybe you’re just not as much into Star Trek as you think.

Already some amazing points here, but I will add one thing:

No matter how utopian your empire becomes, those who grow up in utopia do not have their guard up watching for evil in every corner. The Star Wars flipping back and forth from Republic to Empire over the millennia makes sense.

The federation existed for barely a millennia in its first incarnation. A fall of a galactic empire makes sense. Rebuilding it makes for good story.

Especially, and I can’t stress this enough, when it is a parallel to the world we live in. Trek has always been a way to mirror events and teach moral lessons… But most of all, hope.

Some drumhead court-martial, lifelong prison sentence, violently separating a mother from her child and some goons beating up a prisoner

The key point here is that it is portrayed as horrible. Ake resigned in protest and only came back for the opportunity to make amends. The scene is there to show how far the Federation has fallen, in order to set up the task of rebuilding it.

Starfleet Academy has a justification for how shitty the world is, and IMHO it’s approaching it correctly. There was a galactic disaster that almost completely destroyed the federation, so SFA is literally post-apocalyptic. But it’s using that setting to tell a hopeful and positive story.

The core message of the show is that you can rebuild a just society even after it’s gone so far down the shitter. You can choose to do better, to be better. This is culturally relevant.

Hopefully this spoiler will help:
Your concern is precisely the primary theme of the show.

there’s a saying that goes something like “democracy is a fresh challenge for each generation.” any trek show that shows what we can be without also exploring how we can (or can fail to) stay there is being overly optimistic at best and dishonest at worst. i agree that the execution often fails, especially in Picard and early Discovery, but later Discovery and Academy are shows not about a distopian future but about carving out a utopia within one. Discovery starts out in the SNW era and even in universe everyone can tell how messed up this crew is- note how Pike treats Disco with kid gloves versus how he treats the Enterprise like a ship of adults- but something very interesting happens when they make the jump to the post-Burn future, where suddenly the worst Starfleet has to offer are the best just because they remember how things could be. That offers them and the fallen federation (and the show) a mutual chance at redemption, and Academy is building off of that without Disco’s baggage. Academy sees the same problems you do with the post-Burn galaxy and are working to turn it back into the one you remember. you could argue about the execution still, but the heart is there

It technically goes back to Roddenberry.

First, Roddenberry still wrote the Federation as having some faults. A major plot point in Star Trek VI is that Starfleet is attempting a coup of the Federation to keep the cold war going. In early TNG, the Federation is seen as entertaining ending Data’s rights and allows a Federation colony to deteriorate to the level of drug wars.

Roddenberry had also written a treatment for a post-Federation time where a Federation ship goes into the future and rebuilds the Federation from scratch. That show became Andromeda, but the concept ended up being used in Discovery and Starfleet Academy.

I’m on the same boat. Apart from Lower Decks, I can’t watch the new shows. I keep hoping a new show might fix it, and be for me, but the longer it goes, the less I’m interested in Star Trek.

Lately I’ve been thinking about unsubscribing from all the Star Trek communities, as all the discussions and hype about the new shows is making me think I’m no longer a trekkie. I loved TNG, DS9, VOY and tolerated ENT, but the new shows are clearly not made for me.

The whole separating the child from the mother is turned in the first episode, and that tension creates character motivation in both the child and the captain who carries it out. Who admits on screen later that episode that it was a huge mistake and it’s why she leaves Starfleet for 20 years. At the period in time that the separation happens the federation has pretty much fallen apart because of the burn (due to some unexplained physics phenomenon warp technology failed over a hundred years earlier). So yeah it may seem like the federation was a utopia by our standards, but it was really a demonstration of a cooperative rather than competitive future (Communism v. Capitalism). And even in that future nothing is perfect, shit happens, you have to deal with it and do the hard work of building strong community.

One of the most central lessons of the whole franchise is sumed up in the kobyoshi maru, a test from the 22-2300s era of trek that is a literal unwinnable scenario. The lesson: it possible to make no mistakes and still lose. Pick yourself up and do your best.

I mean, that point about seperating a mother and child, kind of forms the entire basis of the show as its what drive Captain Ake to come head the new Starfleet Academy. She feels like complete shit that it happened and wants Starfleet to be better in its rebirth.

And technically, Academy IS a “dystpian setting” because they had the galaxy wide apocalypse event that was The Burn that obliterated every warp drive and collapsed everything but it sounds like you didn’t watch Discovery so you may have missed that.

So, you jumped on the conclusion that you don’t like any recent Star Trek series, even though you didn’t even try listening more than ten minutes of the first episode of each—while remaining fully biased, yet you insist on criticizing every decision based one whatever you assume all these new series are about, and shit on them, hoping to reinforce your opinion about them.

This is what you sound like: “Huh, so, I opened the book, read the first sentence of the preface, didn’t hook me, so fuck it didn’t read it at all, but let me tell you all how this book is so bad and doesn’t explain anything about what they claim to do, and how they should stick to writing then exactly how they did 60 years ago, just like my grandma used to…”

Do you truly want the answers you claim to seek?

Then how about you actually attentively listen to those entire series in full. You’d be surprised how they might give you more answers than you could possibly imagine.

Stop wasting our time. You want to criticize the new series, at least have the decency to actually watch them first.