Thanks to everyone who picked up STAR TREK: YEAR FIVE #13 today. As you can tell, the stories we're telling in the next 13 months are going to introduce dangers not only external to the Federation - but also inside it as well.

So I'd like to take a second to talk about utopia.

One of the most beautiful things about Trek - a defining feature next to most sci-fi - is its creators' insistence that it take place in a world made more utopian through unity, understanding, empathy, and bravery.

IDIC: infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

However...

Utopia, in practice, can feel deeply removed from our day-to-day experience. Look around and find utopia. You cannot.

So in telling Trek stories, the Federation absolutely must still contain bias, fear, and greed. It reflects us so we recognize ourselves in its struggle.

The triumph of the United Federation of Planets is not - in my view - that it has "evolved" beyond the othering of that which is different.

The triumph is that it strives constantly to do so, in the face of literally infinite diversity.

It looks at the unknown to find itself.

Now imagine you are Captan James T. Kirk. You've been "at sea" for nearly five years. You've been fighting for those ideals. You've been opening your mind every day, to keep your promise to Starfleet AND to keep your crew alive.

And then you return home... to people who haven't.

This doesn't make the Federation evil. It doesn't make them monsters.

But it does expose the distinction between Starfleet - whose job is to go beyond for the betterment of all - and that amorphous "all" that's being bettered.

One's been around. The other has stood still.

Is it any surprise that some of those sitting still would stop seeing the value in exploring? Or that they'd have made political and cultural decisions in those five years that Kirk wouldn't understand?

And does that make it any less a utopia for having those conversations?

It was with this in mind that Collin and I set out last year to plan the second year of STAR TREK: YEAR FIVE. "Let's be relevant, but not too relevant" went the thinking. Universalism wins the day.

But then something happened at NYCC that changed my entire mindset.

During a Trek signing, I was approached by an older gentleman with a pretty terrible cough. I asked how he was doing and he mentioned that it was "a good day."

So as I signed some books, I asked him a little more about what that meant. And he told me his story.

He told me about his time as a first responder w/ the FDNY.

About being one of the first men into the World Trade Center.

About all the friends he'd watched die of the sicknesses born of that tragedy.

And he asked me a question: "why hasn't Star Trek ever talked about 9/11?"

Now, of course, Trekhas talked about 9/11 in metaphor. The Xindi attack in Enterprise. The crashing of the Vengeance.

But he wasn't asking me about metaphor.

He was asking me plainly why Trek had not mentioned the sacrifice he and his people made. Literally.

So I found myself on the cusp of trying to explain to this man - this actual survivor of an actual tragedy, who was coughing due to debris he had inhaled trying to save lives - that the reason Trek had not talked about 9/11 was that, by 2001 in the timeline, history had diverged.

And I knew, in my soul, that was wrong. It was of course correct canonically - but it was fundamentally out of sorts with the empathy extended by Star Trek. The empathy which drives forward their utopia.

To ignore this man's heroism because of canon would be cowardice.

So I swore we'd honor him and the fellow heroes who made a journey into the unknown to save lives, even when the rest of the world moved on without them.

Not by paying lip service to 9/11, but by drawing a direct correlation between their struggle and the Federation's.

Lt. William Gleason of the FDNY gave me a challenge coin that day. It’s sat on my desk ever since as a reminder to never shy away from telling “relevant” stories. As a challenge - aptly named - to remember that IDIC includes those we send out in our name... and then forget.

So yes, we're doing another story where a Starfleet Admiral has bad intentions. And we're looking at how we treat those who sacrifice their lives in our name. And we're not going to hide behind the idea that somehow humanity will not make these mistakes ever onward in the future.

This is not in contradiction to Star Trek's utopia. It is the very point of it.

In the future, we still make mistakes.

But in the Federation, we learn from them.

And we resolve always to do better.