It Took 60 Years, But Star Trek Finally Has Its Own Take on Sci-Fi’s Oldest Trope

2026 marks 60 years of Star Trek, and it’s fair to say that across the past six decades, which have delivered hundreds of hours of space-faring TV and film, the franchise has told virtually every kind of story there is within science fiction. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds alone has done its best to tick off as many of those as possible, from alien invasion and first contact stories to time travel, time loops, and alternate timelines. If someone in a Trek writers’ room somewhere can dream it up, it’s been done.

That said, there was one long-in-the-tooth sci-fi trope that never appeared in the franchise at any point over the last 60 years. It’s known that this was originally due to a creative mandate by creator Gene Roddenberry, but why the concept was not revived at any time over the past 30 years since his passing is unclear. Whatever the reason for the Trek universe turning its nose up at this trope for so long, Strange New Worlds has finally put that oversight right in the opening episode of its fourth season. And, in doing so, it has changed Star Trek lore forever in a major way.

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It’s Taken 60 Years, But Martians Now Finally Exist In The Star Trek Universe

Starfleet crews have encountered countless alien races across the different iterations of Trek, from Klingons to Romulans to Borg to Species 8472, but it has taken until Strange New Worlds Season 4 for the Enterprise to actually make first contact with a race of native Martians. At first, the notion would seem to create a major continuity error: if humanity has been exploring space for centuries, how come they’re only just now crossing paths with the people from the planet next door? However, the episode devises a clever workaround that not only keeps Star Trek canon intact, but also creates it in the first place.

In “Valles Marineris,” Captain Christopher Pike and his Enterprise crew get caught in a stellar storm, which transports them and their ship back in time. 65 million years back in time, to be exact, during the time of the dinosaurs. While the away team attempts to evade dinosaurs on the prehistoric Earth’s surface, Pike and the rest of the crew make contact with a ship full of Martians. In classic Trek fashion, these Martians closely resemble humans, only with blue markings on their foreheads and pointed Vulcan-like ears. Hailing from a verdant and prosperous Mars, the Martians are looking for a way to defeat the Dol’drm, a carnivorous insectoid race from another planet in the Solar System, which the Enterprise crew knows doesn’t exist in their time.

Although Pike hopes he has gained the trust of the Martians, the Martian Commander, Cassell, and her men hack into the Enterprise’s computer systems and discover the truth of where, or when, the ship is from. In a desperate attempt to avert a future where Mars becomes a desolate wasteland, Cassell steals an anti-matter fuel cell from the Enterprise and uses it as a bomb to destroy the Dol’drm’s homeworld, and herself.

Debris from the Dol’drm planet’s destruction travels to Earth in the form of an asteroid — the same asteroid that wipes out the dinosaurs and clears the path for the evolution of humanity. The explosion also knocks Mars off its former orbit, pushing it further away from the sun, which will ultimately turn it into the dead red planet it is in the present. Pike and his crew are stunned to discover that they have not interfered with the timeline by traveling back 65 million years; they have ensured that their timeline will happen.

It is fitting that Spock is present to witness this historic first contact between humans and Martians. In the very first pitch document for The Original Series, Spock was revealed to come from Mars. However, the optimistic Gene Roddenberry ultimately changed the character into a Vulcan because he hoped that Earth would discover life on Mars within his lifetime, and he did not want his series to become outdated. The fact that Strange New Worlds’ Martians share characteristics with Vulcans may be a nod to Spock’s near-miss Martian heritage.

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Star Trek’s Martian Episode Is A Homage To The Origins of Science Fiction

Although Roddenberry vetoed their participation in TOS, it’s surprising that none of the subsequent Star Trek series thought to include Martians until now. Pop culture is positively full of them, with men from Mars appearing in everything from superhero comics to Looney Tunes (and, of course, a lot of video games). In fact, science fiction has been speculating about the inhabitants of Earth’s nearest neighbor in the Solar System since its beginnings. 1898’s The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells famously sees Martians invade Earth, and 1912’s A Princess of Mars, written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, finds Earthling John Carter miraculously transported to the fourth planet from the sun.

It’s the latter that is the most self-conscious influence on “Valles Marineris,” as Pike closes the episode by pulling A Princess of Mars from his shelf and quoting directly from the book. He reads aloud, expressing a sentiment that many Starfleet captains would probably relate to:

In addition, Burroughs was no stranger to writing about dinosaurs either, and this episode’s prehistoric sequences are likely a nod to his 1914 novel, At The Earth’s Core. The decision to homage the works of Burroughs so lovingly may be viewed as somewhat controversial, due to the outmoded and offensive elements of the author’s output, but in many ways, it’s fitting for Star Trek to reach back to the early days of sci-fi during such a landmark year for the franchise. Star Trek at least partially owes its existence to those early pulpy adventure stories that kickstarted the genre, so it’s only proper for Trek to tip its hat to science fiction past, even as it gets ready to head into the future and hopefully survive for another 60 years.