Our first letter this week comes from Scott in Canada:

Dear STARTREK.COM,
I have been a Star Trek fan for over half my life. The attraction for me has always been Gene Roddenberry's positive vision of humanity's future. I constantly read and re-read every interview and book I can find about Gene, his life and his philosophies. One of the most important to me is Yvonne Fern's "Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation."

After I read "The Last Conversation" for the first time, I went about exploring humanism in its various incarnations. I was surprised to find that not all humanists are like Roddenberry was. Gene's humanism was filled with tolerance. Though he was agnostic, he didn't discriminate against those of any religion. His humanism was based on a love of the human animal and a desire to see us leave our status as a "child race" and someday grow into something incredible.

I adopted IDIC: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations as my personal life philosophy when I was in high school. I have lived by that philosophy since then. I admit to having moments of judgment and discrimination but by keeping IDIC firmly in my mind I am always able to overcome them. It is so easy to see that humanity's diversity makes us stronger. Individually, we are like lost puzzle pieces; each cut in a different shape. But together, we form a massive and beautiful complete image.

I have a great deal of hope for humanity's future because of what I have learned from Gene Roddenberry and because of what I have learned from myself and the people I come into contact with. However, having hope is sometimes like wishing for something. I think many of us sit back and take for granted that someday our Earth will look like the one in the 24th century. That's just not so.

Roddenberry's gift was to show us what we are capable of if we work toward it. Humanity has the potential to be great. We are not there yet. We will have to work together and work hard to create the kind of future that we would love to live in.

I don't have a map of how we can get to Roddenberry's future, but I do have some ideas about it. I think we have to become living examples of what we wish everyone would be. We have to adopt the IDIC philosophy and show tolerance and respect for differences wherever they may be. I think we have to continue to unite as fans with a vision to raise money for charities, to raise awareness for social causes and to support forward-thinking education.

It is important that we take action, no matter how small. Let's follow that old environmental slogan: "think globally, act locally." We must become the teachers, the counselors and the architects of the future that we want our children to live in. The only way to ensure that is to treat everyone with respect and offer them friendship. As often as possible, we must try to provide positive examples of what a human being can be.

We are all fallible. Even Jean-Luc Picard makes mistakes. But we can work together to overcome any mistake that we make. There is no problem on this planet that is so great as to be unsolvable if humanity stands united against it. I have to believe that I am not the only one who thinks this way.

Star Trek has galvanized me. I see a goal for us on the horizon and I will try to live my life the way Gene Roddenberry suggested we live in order to reach that goal. If we all actively work toward that future then we will validate the work that Roddenberry did during his life and humanity's legacy will be a world at peace.

Scott W., Vancouver, Canada

Scott,
It's refreshing to see such an optimistic view. While I'm sure that Star Trek and Roddenberry's humanistic vision provided you with some guidance in your personal beliefs, I'm also confident that you would have arrived at some of these conclusions yourself as it's clear you have an open mind. Sure, if we did all believe in diversity, peace, tolerance and working together the world would be a better place. And leading by example is truly one of the best things you can do on a local level. On a global level, perhaps in this age of ever increasing access to information, certain entrenched ideas that do nothing to progress the causes of humanity will be gradually overcome. As for rectifying every mistake, we can only hope that none of our environmental miscues come back to haunt us!

Dear STARTREK.COM,
Since I was not a huge fan of Enterprise the saddest moment for me with Star Trek was watching "Nemesis." When that movie ended I found myself in tears because I realized I was saying goodbye to "my" Star Trek, much like my mom did when she saw "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country." I am 25-years old and up to this point have had a rough life, from struggling a lot to make ends meet, to having cancer when I was 8-years old. One thing that stood as a constant for me for many years was Star Trek, and knowing for the time being that there are no new movies or shows in the works makes me very sad.

I started watching the Original Series when I was about 4 or 5-years old; a local PBS station picked up a lot of the episodes and on the weekends they usually aired at least two in a row. I loved the show then but it was not until later that my love for the franchise itself grew. I can still remember being 6 or 7-years old when "Encounter at Farpoint" debuted; from that moment on I was hooked on TNG. The year I spent getting treatment for cancer I can remember watching TNG on a weekly basis and in a way the show gave me hope. Here I was 8-years old, facing uncertainty and brutal treatments, but when I would watch TNG I was pulled into that world and saw how much better things were in there. The medical technologies displayed always grabbed my interest, but more so than that the idea of living in peace and harmony on Earth was, and still is, something that gave me hope, and for that I owe a great deal of my mental health to Gene Roddenberry and Rick Berman.

TNG was my friend when I had no one else. It also showed me that people who have a disability or are different do not have to be looked upon in a demeaning way. The character of Geordi La Forge was a huge inspiration to me during my times of struggles because here was a blind man living a normal life and for the most part was greatly accepted and was not discriminated against for being different. It is very hard for me to say who would be my favorite character from TNG since I liked all them equally, but to pick one I would have to say Data. He had the wonder of a child, and the mind of a great scholar; at times he seemed like the most "human" of all the characters. Watching Data die in "Nemesis" brought tears to my eyes. I was watching a hero of mine die and it affected me greatly. As I was growing up I never understood how my mom cried when Spock died in Star Trek II, but now I understand how and why since I always looked at Data as TNG's equivalent to Spock. Another reason I like Data so much was that during cancer treatment I would often wish I was an android like Data because then I wouldn't be going through the treatments.

For me it is rare to find a TV show that has such a well developed cast as the Star Trek series did, and especially TNG and Voyager in my book, and seeing that from day one when TNG launched was exciting to me. A lot of people I know see Star Trek and think it's all fake and not real science, but I feel they have it all wrong. While there are certain things in Star Trek, and usually all science fiction, that have no chance of becoming reality, overall I feel like the science fiction part is used to keep people interested so they can get the messages of the overall franchise. To me what Star Trek is all about is exploring the unknown, be it in space or emotions or problems of people, and the idea of peace on Earth. I always hope that someday Earth could achieve some kind of peace like in Star Trek, and I hope as people we can gather some of the values of Star Trek and use them to move on to a unified public. If nothing else I hope people can learn tolerance and acceptance of others from the show.

I still hold out hope for a new TNG movie, but I realize there is almost no chance for that so I hope that in the near future there will be a new series, maybe picking up down the road from "Nemesis" with a future Enterprise and take it from there. Overall I just want to extend a personal thanks to everyone who ever worked with Star Trek because it was their shows that gave me a lot of strength when I needed it.

Thanks for reading this and I wish you and everyone involved in Star Trek the best success in the future and I look forward to the day a new movie or series comes out. Until that day "Live long and prosper."
Sincerely,
John L.

John,
Once again, a truly thoughtful and inspiring letter that touches on the themes of Star Trek and how it pertains to one's own world view. There aren't many TV shows out there that have reached very far beyond their basic purpose of entertaining. Star Trek has clearly influenced the hearts and minds of many, if not most, of those who have made it a part of their lives. (John also provided us with his Desert Asteroid list, which will appear in that feature when it debuts later this week.)