Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's 'War College,' Explained By The Showrunners [Exclusive]

Spoilers for episodes 1-2 of "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" follow.

"Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" is about the first class of Starfleet cadets ever in the 32nd century (making the series the latest point in the chronological "Star Trek" timeline). The Federation continues to recover from the cataclysmic "Burn," which in the year 3069 saw most dilithium (matter used to power warp drives) — and starships powered by it — destroyed. With the Burn behind the galaxy, Starfleet Academy is back. But that's not the only school featured in the show: there is also a "War College."

In the second episode, Starfleet Academy Chancellor Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) thanks that college for producing the soldiers who kept the Federation safe the last century. /Film's Jacob Hall spoke to "Starfleet Academy" showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau about their decision to bifurcate the schools like this. For Kurtzman, it was a matter of showing how the Federation has changed and is now changing again:

"The idea is obviously that they're emerging from the Burn, the era of the Burn and the era of the Burn, Starfleet was like, 'We just have to defend our borders. We really don't have time to do the mission of exploration that has so defined 'Star Trek' forever.' And now obviously because Discovery came, fixed that problem, the Federation is back on its feet, the Federation is returning to its old ethos, what do you do with the War College now when the job isn't just to defend your borders?"

"Starfleet Academy" episode 2 acknowledges this in a classroom scene, when an instructor explains that: "Comparative Xeno-Mythology was dropped from the curriculum 100 years ago, when Starfleet's emphasis shifted from understanding those with whom we share a universe to defending ourselves against them."

However, the very next scene of the episode shows Starfleet cadets in combat training under cadetmaster Lura Thok (Gina Yashere) who preaches "duty, honor, and service." The existence of the War College underlines the greatest contradiction of "Star Trek," one that Trekkies have been debating since there were "Star Trek" fans — Starfleet promotes peace yet is also one of the galaxy's foremost military forces.

"Star Trek" is often cited as progressive utopian future. Among the Federation, diversity is celebrated and since humanity has moved past the need for money, people crave personal betterment more than wealth. Whenever "Star Trek" explores prejudice, it's with alien species and allegory, because humans in this future have largely moved past bigotries of old. Yet in spite of that, the future of "Star Trek" is tinged with some American exceptionalism.

The series' opening narration speaks of space as a "final frontier," evoking the American West and Manifest Destiny; Gene Roddenberry even pitched "Star Trek" with the phrase "a wagon train to the stars." The Federation is a democracy made of up member planets that form a larger whole, like a galaxy-sized United States. Enemies of the Federation are, in turn, often used to represent enemies of the U.S. (in the original series, the Klingons were the Soviet Union, for instance).

The surprising militarism and Americanism of Starfleet is, as argued so well by YouTuber Renegade Cut, a key reason why there are many more conservative Trekkies than you might expect from the series' reputation.

"Star Trek" has sometimes tried to square the circle of Starfleet being and not being a military (like in "Strange New Worlds") but it doesn't quite have a satisfying answer. So, for Kurtzman, the answer is to embrace that Starfleet is a military, but also much more.

"Starfleet still is a military organization," he told /Film. "It's not like they don't believe in the military, it's just that they also believe in space exploration and all the other things. They're not solely designating all of their focus on the military."

While The War College "puts in the foreground the very question that the fans have been talking about for a long time" per Kurtzman, it's also about having good drama. If you're going to set a show at a school, then you need to establish a rival school:

"Who's the rival football team? I mean, we also have Friday night lights. You need that friction. And so I think the idea of letting the War College cadets and our cadets deal with this together is very fun."

Perhaps a future episode of "Starfleet Academy" will see the Starfleet cadets and War College face off in a Parrises squares tournament.

"Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" is streaming on Paramount+.