Star Trek: 10 Times The Federation Was The Bad Guy

We're starting to think the Federation just likes an excuse to play JAG.

Ad Astra per Aspera follows the prosecution of Una for hiding the fact she's a genetically modified Illyrian. In the shadow of the Eugenics War, so-called 'augments' were banned from joining not only Starfleet, but also the Federation.

In an attempt to sweep Una's case under the carpet, she's offered a deal; plead guilty and receive a dishonourable discharge, but remain a Federation citizen. Una rejects the deal in favour of making a stand for Illyrians...and the prosecution responds by adding sedition to her current list of charges and seeking twenty years in a penal colony as a sentence.

To put that into perspective, Tom Paris received eighteen months when he was convicted of treason.

But the issue is much broader...how can it be ethical to make Federation citizenship conditional on people's genetically modified status? There were people so desperate to join that they died trying to revert their augmentations. For an organisation that prizes diversity, they sure do like their bans...

By the Strange New Worlds era, the Eugenic Wars were centuries in the past. And Una's trial apparently did little to soften their stance given the trouble that Julian Bashir faces when it's discovered he was modified as a child. A more nuanced rule around people actively augmenting their DNA as adults would be one thing, but to extend that to individuals who had no control over their augmentation seems excessive to the point of prejudice.

All people have the potential for good and bad, augmented or not. Tarring an entire group of people with the same brush and then excluding them seems, frankly, as anti-Federation as it comes.