Over the past few years our family has spent many evenings watching old episodes of “Star Trek” on DVD. This is partly because we’re not impressed with a lot of the shows that are currently being produced (something’s wrong when you end up remembering and talking about the great commercials, but you can’t recall what the show was about). But it’s also partly because “Star Trek” is what we prefer to watch.

Five years ago we started with the “Voyager” series, traveling with Capt. Janeway, Seven of Nine and The Doctor as they journeyed back to Earth from an unexpected trip to the other side of the galaxy. And after we finished with those DVDs, we moved on to Next Generation’s seven year mission, joining Capt. Picard, Data, Worf and Counselor Troi on the bridge of the starship Enterprise or on the surface of some alien planet.

This “Star Trek” gathering takes place as many evenings as we can all be together — after homework and household chores are finished, of course. One of the rules (one that’s only rarely been waived) is that nobody watches the next episode until everyone can. It’s a family time, and it’s a hopeful time.

What’s that I wrote? Hopeful? How is “Star Trek” hopeful? It’s just a science fiction TV show.

Well, given what’s going on in the world right now — all the dark, depressing news about financial collapse and terrorist threats – any story that shows a future with living, breathing, thriving humans is hopeful. And at its most basic level, in between the encounters with species 8472 and battles with the Borg, the different manifestations of “Star Trek” make visible a future to which we can look forward: progress towards peace and prosperity achieved through struggle, but progress nonetheless. And survival. On some days, the progress is what we admire most. On other days, it’s the survival.

It’s not escapism. We don’t stop paying attention and trying to do something about all that is going on in our “real” lives. We don’t pretend “Star Trek” is “real” the way some obsessed fans we’ve read about. We’re just seeking out a more optimistic, long term version of the future on our TV sets. The pursuit of peaceful coexistence features prominently in the show’s depiction of the future of humanity.

Neither is the vision we encounter in these episodes nave. War is not absent. Sometimes starships do “raise shields” and fire their phasers and photon torpedoes. The darker side of human nature is acknowledged and confronted.

Violence, however, is portrayed as the last possible option, the least attractive one — for both humans and aliens. War is not inevitable in the “Star Trek” universe. Characters become admired as diplomats more than warriors, for exercising restraint when afraid or angry, for holding to ideals and values as they struggle towards peace. Many episodes of this series dwell on how characters will take great risks, doing just about anything to avoid violence.

There are no shortcuts to peace, in the “Star Trek” story lines, but when warriors do occasionally take center stage, war is not presented as a shortcut to real peace. When freedom or individuality is threatened, those warriors wage war according to rules: imagine some future version of the Geneva Conventions and you wouldn’t be too far off. Honor in victory is more important than just winning the war as quickly and easily as possible, and those that believe the latter are always the villains. And they always lose.

For all of those reasons — and more — I’m glad we spend so much of our precious family time in front of the TV set. I’m hopeful that the realized hopes and dreams, even the values we see displayed and discussed in Star Trek, take root in our kids. It would be nice to see some of that peaceful coexistence in the real world — someday.

David Rask Behling is a resident of Albert Lea and a member of Freeborn County Paths to Peace.