10 Times Star Trek Foretold The Apocalypse

Star Trek's an allegory, and it's also fair forewarning. 'Let's not do or continue like x, y, z,' or else we'll have to tell you we told you so (if we're still around by then to say it). Amongst all that seeking out, crews have frequently encountered places and planets where doomsday had been and gone. The galaxy is littered with already-apocalypses for us to (hopefully) avoid.

Star Trek: The Original Series played on the theme a few times — overpopulation in The Mark of Gideon, or an ancient war between the Arretans in Return to Tomorrow, for example. No doubt its most well-known moral of the planetary cataclysm story, however, was Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. Sure, the allegory was about as subtle as a Tellarite condolence card, but by the episode's end, you couldn't fail to miss the point: if we don't stop hating each other, hate is all we'll have left.

That's not to forget Talos IV, a nuclear warning amidst Cold War tensions. Now forced to live beneath the surface and get their kicks with telepathic trickery, the Talosians destroyed their planet in a war millennia ago. Others, like the Vaadwaur and the Iconians, faced their near-extinction from orbit.

Various species across the Trek cosmos are also known to have gone completely extinct through their own hubris and belligerence: the Promellians and the Menthars fought to mutual self-destruction in our 14th century; the Pralor and the Cravic of the Delta Quadrant were killed by their own Automated Units; the Minosians met their end at the end of their own weapon system… and the list goes on.