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As anyone with a bit of military knowledge might know, the officer-enlisted personnel ratio in any type of military operation leans quite heavily toward the enlisted side. However, in the world of Star Trek, the vast majority of the time all viewers seem to run into are officers and other important personnel on these starships of thousands.

Sure, there is the occasional character that breaks this stereotype, such as Quark on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" or Neelix on "Star Trek: Voyager," but these characters – especially main ones – are few and far in between. Gene Roddenberry gave his fans a great vision of what the universe could be like, and while Star Trek in all of its incarnations does a good job at showing what life is like for these people in positions of great power, I am left to wonder what life would be like for the rest of us, those who aren’t cut out to be starship captains.

Surprisingly, we seem to know very little about how society in the Star Trek universe actually functions. Some fans might know the schematic for a Galaxy Class starship, but many – including myself – don’t know much about the society, and more importantly the people, that starship is supposed to serve. We know that in the United Federation of Planets, money doesn’t even exist, that everyone is provided for, and all of these other utopian ideals that I always dream about, but I need more than that.

What is life like for someone who is not an officer trekking the universe on the flagship of the Federation? How are the basic needs of life provided for? What do the billions of people on planet Earth do? Throughout history, society has rested upon the backs of the masses and that trend will most likely not change hundreds of years into the future.

Sure, the life on the bridge of a starship makes for good television, but there is so much more to discover. We have this whole vision of a better universe at our fingertips, but we have only begun to scratch at the surface. I know that things like this would never make it onto the small screen, because for the most part, the life of an average person does not make for good entertainment. It would be nice, however, to somehow just take a peak at all of those undiscovered corners of the Star Trek universe.

Brian Meskimen is a columnist for Airlock Alpha writing out of Minnesota. He can be reached at bmeskimen@airlockalpha.com.

The Trek Within is a feature of Airlock Alpha and also available on Roddenberry.com, the official Web site for the Roddenberry family maintained by Eugene W. Roddenberry Jr. Visit Roddenberry.com to read The Trek Within as well as a bonus feature from Airlock Alpha site coordinator Michael Hinman every other week.